The Glade 4.0

Diamondeye:

And, yet, we have 6 pages of you saying Islam is why these people give tacit approval; that it's the catalyst for violent and silent support of anti-American and anti-West Terrorism. So which is it? The religion or no that really doesn't matter?

As for a reductive fallacy, you need better definitions. It's also a reductive fallacy to take a complex group of people and reduce them to a trivial commonality such as religion. Never mind the fact that there's very little uniformity in practice and belief from Morocco to Malaysia right?

But, whatever, your ad hominems have actually pissed me off. Your disdain for my avocation and vocation are evident. This thread doesn't have anything to do with you disagreeing with me. I figured that out when I re-read it this morning. It has to do with you hating what I do for a living.

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Fight the Fantastic Four?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

False dilemma. Once again, it is not a matter of "Islam causes it or doesn't cause it." It is a matter of the fact that Islamic teachings are replete with examples (Rynar posted selection of verses earlier) of doctrines and beliefs far more easy to interpret as a call to violence than those of any other religion, especially in light of the violent life led by the man who introduced those teachings.

It is very easy, in the case of Christians who have used Christianity to justify various atrocities, to point to Christ's teachings and say "Your Lord taught the opposite of what you are doing, hypocrite!" That does not seem to be so easily done with Islam, even in a world where the crictic can do so in places where he is guaranteed protection from fanatics who might attack him for doing so. It seems that muslims who object to violence have a much harder time showing unequivocally that wht the radicals are doing is wrong according to their own beliefs.

Nevertheless, having not read the Koran extensively, and in view of what you've pointed out about failure to report such things, kindly see below at the end.



Since no one has taken a complex group of people and reduced them to a commonality (a non-trivial one at that), then no reductive fallacy has been committed. In fact, I've freely acknowledged that there are considerable differences between muslims from different places, cultures, and languages.

What I have said, however, is that there is also a commonality which results in these muslims from wuch widely varied backgrounds showing up in places where conflict is ongoing to fight for... other muslims. In fact, this has even happened in places like Bosnia where the local muslims were neither radical, militant, nor inclined to terrorism and who did not even want the help of muslims from other places because they did not want the strict Sharia law they felt would accompany it.



You're in no position to complain about ad hominems, since you started off this entire thing making ad homenims against me. It's also hilarious that you complain I hate what you do for a living after complaining that I am telling you waht you think. Which way is it going to be, Khross? Pick one or the other.

In any case, no I do not hate what you do for a living. I find it annoying that you feel all you need to do is talk about how you've studied this issue, and expect everyone else to simply acede to your opinion without the slightest explaination of why you're correct. This is only made worse by the fact that you just claim anyone who disagrees with you is poorly trained, racist, xenophobic, or listening to "propaganda", again, without even cursory explaination. It's taken more than half the thread to get you to start actually discussing the facts instead of just lecturing everyone on how they should be ashamed of themselves.

There's also the fact that what you do for a living apparently involves a great deal of guesswork about things you've mentioned such as cultural hegemony, phenomonology, social constructivism, and so forth, which have no way of being tested and either validated or rejected as useful hypothesis.

In fact, you've claimed that there is a reductive fallacy involved in pointing to Islam as a contributor towards terrorism. Yet any cause we might identify could be claimed to be reductive simply because there is not just one cause. Are you trying to say that identifying the causes is futile? Or are you saying that this only applies if we identify Islam as one of the causes because it's a religion? Or what? It does not seem to square at all with the idea that we can identify pre and post colonial events as the cause; that would be equally reductive. Even more reductive would be pointing to specific events such as Churchill's supposed gassing of Baghdad (which I can find no evidence of. It seems Churchill recommended it be used, although not specifically on Baghdad, but was turned down by the cabinet and had to be content with scuh pedestrian means as bombs, machine guns, and rockets. but I digrees, since that hardly excuses such behavior) and claiming that somehow causes the events we encounter in the present day.

However, after giving the matter a night's thought, I will concede that there is considerable merit to your point that Islam, like other religions, is easily manipulated by the radical and used as a weapon, and that this works especially well on poor, uneducated, and uninformed people. Therefore, perhaps Islam is not a catalyst per se, at least not in the sense that it will act as such without some form of radical cleric or other adherent to make it into a catalyst.

If we were to accept that, then we still require explaination as to why areas without heavy Islamic influence, such as Kenya, Vie Nam, and the like, do not produce such radical adherents to their own philosophies.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's not actually a matter of "fact" as much as it is a matter of "translation". The Koran, not having quite the same status in the Anglo-Saxon and Roman Disaporas as the Bible, is much more susceptible to political translations. Rynar's post amounts, to the most part, to the same thing Beryllin was prone to do with the Bible: a bunch of non-contextual quotes that infer violence, a call to violence, or a reverence of "justified" violence. And, in some cases, that's arguably correct; in others, not so much. For instance, more than once Beryllin cherry-picked verses and parts of verses to vindicate himself for his perceptions of persecution and exclusion here on the Glade. Rynar's post serves much the same function. You'll note, I've not denied Muhammed's personal history; nor, for that matter, have I denied the history of the Caliphates and their various empires. Those things happened. And, much like Roman expansion through Europe until the "Dark Ages", Religion was very much a tool of that expansion. Nothing says, "I'm right and you're wrong" like the Divine Right of Kings.They can, but that's complicated. Consider the fact that the Islamic population belt extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific across resource scarce and geographically harsh terrain. It spans, quite literally, almost every country in the northern half of Africa to Malaysia and parts of Thailand and Viet Nam. It spans, quite possibly, the most diverse ethnic groups of any religion on the planet for the same reason. Among most of the nations covered, regardless of dominant religion, we're talking about collections of poor, primarily tribal peoples attempting to establish either self-rule or re-establish nomadic, tribal societies under the umbrellas of post-colonial Westernized states. The literacy rate for the people we're discussing rarely exceeds 50% for Adult Males. Other sub-demographics are generally much lower. And, as a general rule, we're talking about the poorest people in the world. Sure, you have states like Yemen or Qatar with ridiculously high per-capita GDPs, Oil and Mineral Wealth, etc.; but that doesn't trickle down to the masses. The poor people are poor; and, in some cases, slavery is probably a step up the social and economic ladder.

Clerics, on the other hand, and Radical Leaders are generally better educated, better funded, and far more sophisticated than most people in the U.S. or Europe want to believe. You've indicated yourself, on a few occasions, that particular reality. And something they have, much like land-owners and news printers and hawkers did in the South in the late 18th and early 19th Century, is message control. A person who can't read the Koran can't dispute the teachings of the only Cleric they have access to. If that Cleric gets radicalized, then the opportunities to exploit religion increase relative to the population at hand.

There are also other problems with the social and demographic situation: 52 virgins amounts to exactly dick when the Taliban is promising people in Kandahar land, sheep, and money in exchange for shelter or compliance. So, mostly, what you state as Islam being a catalyst is more readily the U.S. and its Allies losing the information game. Religious message control is only part of the equation (but I'll get back to that in a second). The rest of the situation has to do with familial and social security; it has to do with surviving.

Remember all the American liberals clamoring over the U.S. Bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age? They never really left. There are some 25 major and another 20-30 minor ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The vast majority are small or medium tribal and nomadic peoples who settled down into villages out of necessity created by imperial and post-imperial governments. And that leads to a lot of resentment. While younger generations may not exactly know the history and most tribal leaders who do are long gone, it's still an easy thing to exploit. With different economic rules and cultural expectations imposed by the elite, you've got people willing to fight for the only intangible truth they know: Allah as perpetrated by radical clerics.

The flip side of this, in more modern states like Iran, is that generally well educated and competent masses get overshadowed by the radical elements. A state level conflict between the U.S. and Iran leads to the assumption that its citizens either tacitly support their government or more radical elements (and I'm sure some do, because every country has its crazies). But, demonstrations such as those over recent elections and the post-9/11 unofficial day of mourning indicate a lot of changes and either -- residual western influence or -- the simple reality that most people, when left to themselves, want to be free to live and die as they please. Message control doesn't work as well in urban/metropolitan areas of Iran as it does in rural Pakistan and rural Afghanistan (places where you can literally not find a road for a 100 kilometers, and if you do, you really don't know its a road).You've probably read more of it than you know, but heh ... most Christians haven't extensively read the Bible (see above).Yes, you have acknowledged considerable differences, but you still reduce Islam itself. Perhaps my application is too specific or too tailored to a specific field of study. Either way, no biggie.Bosnia is a complex situation, much like Chechnya and Azerbaijan and Georgia and Uzbekistan, because there are other problems going on here that extend much further back into history than even the Balkan tinderbox. Of course, the Soviet Union REALLY didn't help matters there. That said, consider how smart the people pulling the strings happen to be and their social status. Bin Laden is part of the economic and intellectual elite: He's crazy as **** by our standards, but he has resources, connections, and a network of similarly intelligent people through which and with which he wages his campaign against the United States.I wasn't really insulting you as much as I was being supremely annoyed by seeing people I otherwise respect type out opinions that they really shouldn't find themselves possessed of. That said, you're right: it was a bit crass and tasteless of me to phrase it the way I did. Perhaps I should have said ...

"Diamondeye, it frustrates me that you continue to see the situation in this manner."As I said, the topic annoys me. And I'm not talking about Fox News or CNN or anyone specific: it's a widespread thing that seems to growing of its own accord. Michelle Malkin and Anne Coulter are the least of my worries. It's the people who agree with them implicitly without realizing it. And that goes back to how the "Terrorists" are winning the conflict. They have a better grasp of how to use the uninformed masses against their opponent. We, being mostly the U.S., are hindered by our ability to see a living breathing person as a living breathing person. The poor unwashed masses of the former Persian empire are just cattle to the people leading this "thing". And that makes them very, very dangerous.It's not guess work, but it's not exactly something you can repeat in a laboratory either. And I think that's your disconnect with it. The notion of cultural psychology and cultural identity is actually pretty new; the field of study is a major departure from the historicism from the late Industrial Revolution and the Victorian Era. And there's still a lot to learn and figure out. I know why I act. You know why you act. We can discuss that between ourselves. We can take polls that show us that 97% of Americans think American Idol is stupid. And, next fall, American Idol will be the highest rated Reality Show in TV. It's my job to figure out why ...

Reductive fallacies weren't mentioned until you used the phrase "the catalyst" and other specific indicators that isolate "Islam" from other issues involved. That said, Churchill and Baghdad was a singular example of something rather heinous and easily tied to Imperialism (and I seemed to remember him using Mustard Gas anyway, but could be wrong). The larger issue is what happens after an industrial power extorts all the viable resources from an area, disrupts indigenous ways of life, and imposes its own social structure onto a people; then leaves? What happens when Britain makes promises to the Kurds and then forgets to honor them? It was reductive, I don't disagree. I suppose the comparison failed.

In any case, there are lots of problems that result from our Countries did, even if you or I or anyone alive actually had anything to do with them. And even if people in rural Iraq don't know the specifics, someone remembers they should hold a grudge somewhere in the collective unconscious. But the world was bigger then than it is now (metaphorically), and it is easier for those people who know enough history to know why there "possibly" should be grudges to make those people who are just flat ignorant of anything that isn't within 25 miles of the farm into weapons.Right. Religion doesn't make terrorists. Radical whackjobs with brains and an agenda make terrorists.They did. But 40 years ago and 50 years ago and 60 years ago (Viet Nam, Rhodesia, Kenya) ... it wasn't quite as easy to get information around the world. Someone came up with a new method of warfare of international antagonism after those conflicts. And the speed at which information can travel now doesn't help one bit.

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All right, fair enough in regard to the translations and the non-contextual nature of the quotes. So would you argue, then, that Muhammed's various successors did the same thing in regard to Islam that various Christian leaders did in regard to Christianity in terms of using the teachings to their own ends? That would seem to be the Divine Right of Kings at its finest.

It would seem that, at the very least, Muhammed's personal history would make it easier to claim that his teachings and those of the Koran in general support warlike behavior simply because you can point to his life and claim "well, that must have been what he meant, because he did it himself!"



Clerics, on the other hand, and Radical Leaders are generally better educated, better funded, and far more sophisticated than most people in the U.S. or Europe want to believe. You've indicated yourself, on a few occasions, that particular reality. And something they have, much like land-owners and news printers and hawkers did in the South in the late 18th and early 19th Century, is message control. A person who can't read the Koran can't dispute the teachings of the only Cleric they have access to. If that Cleric gets radicalized, then the opportunities to exploit religion increase relative to the population at hand.[/quote]

That is quite true, but even among those uneducated people, that sheer variety would seem to mean that the educated, which would include clerics, would have vociferous disagreement amongst themselves over the teachings of the Prophet, if for no other reason than that the ethnic diversity you cite should produce a wide variety of "lenses" to see Islam through. Yet we still see widely diverse groups showing up to fight, and we hear little of internal debate. While your point about making Islam the enemy is acknowledged, it would also be wise from a strategic standpoint to accentuate any disagreement with radicals that exists amongst Islamic scholars. Why do we not take advantage of this if such differences really exist?



Message control and poor performance at information warfare is widely acknowledged as a weakness of Western militaries in both fights. I should point out, however, that part of that loss results from the fact that the press, contrary to being an agent of propaganda, is all too eager to leap on accusations levelled at our conduct by the enemy because atrocity sells well. Yet it rarely gives such gleeful attention to the atrocities of the Taliban and the like, or if it does (such as the Golden Mosque bombing) it portrays them in terms of how they are unfavorable to us.



Yes, that's well understood. We are talking about the country that, when it decided to destroy ancient Bhuddist monuments, was forced to use antiaircrft guns for lack of competant deomlition teams. Blowing up a bunch of rock is hardly a complex task in the hierarchy of such things.



Perhaps, although I should point out that the average Iranian also has little or no objection to constant antagonism towards Israel, despite it's distance from Iran, the different ethnicity and language of Palestinians from Iranians, and its relative irrelevance to Iranian issues. This would tend to point to either A) message control to create an external enemy or B) a desire for muslim solidarity with Palestinians.



I actually have read most of the Bible althoughcertain portions I've found it totally impossible to plow through. However, I do not have much familiarity with what particular parts might be duplicated in the Koran.



Yes, but that's precisely the issue. Bin Laden was involving himself in the Bosnian situation (indirectly, by trying to send "help") well before the U.S. got involved. While Bosnia has been cited as an example of Christians attacking and purging muslims, the real fact of the matter is that the muslims were so hard-pressed mainly because of the ill-advised arms embargo on all sides which heavily favored whoever already had more and better weapons - Serbia.

In any case, the question is why would radical Islamists from around the world bother to come to Bosnia to fight at all? Was it simple a lack of anything better to do after the end of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan? There seems to be, on the part of the radicals at least, a feeling that all Muslims must want their version of Islam, even when they clearly would rather not have it. It seems that once radicalized, ethnic and liguistic distinctions no longer seem to matter.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Diamondeye:

It doesn't matter once radicalized, but I can't really think of any familiar parallels that might make sense. The thing that is disturbing is radicalization in places like Senegal, the United States, and metropolitan Malaysia; mostly, because that indicates either a greater effort by smaller parties or a lot larger conflict than is customarily recognized in the West. As for why send people to die in Bosnia? Political capital.

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Fair enough.



I should point out that the Terrorists have a lot more uneducated masses to use. Despite how we bemoan tha stae of education and the degree to which people are informed in the west, the average is still orders of magnitude better than in poorer areas.

In fact, that level of education both in general and on this issue is precisely what weakens us. We have a great many people that have little sympthy for the enemy, but also take issue with practically everything we do about it. Every living room has its own armchair general.



I wasn't thinking of a lab, specifically, since that would be logistically impractical at best. What I was thinking more of, is when you demonstrate why you think American Idol gets fabulous ratings, if I think your idea is hogwash, how would I go about disproving it?

To put it another way, my job is partly to explain to the commander "why" the enemy would undertake a particular course of action. We do this by extrapolating from why he's fighting in the first place. In order to make this colossal task achievable, we handle it at different levels, so when I conduct this at the battalion or brigade level I am not starting from his national objectives and working all the way down to where I am; I pick it up at the division level.

But we don't do this by simply guessing at his national objectives; we look at what he;s actually doing and then figure out his objectives based on what his actions have a chance of accomplishing. In this way, it can be examined to see if the "why" makes any sense. For example, if intelliegence analysts claimed that the enemy's objective was to take an oil refinery because a great deal of air assault (helicopter) infantry had been located int he area, that would make sense. It would not make sense if we claimed his objective with that infantry was to attack and destroy an enemy tank battalion; he would get mauled.

There does not seem to be any way to duplicate this sort of "does it make sense" with many of these concepts, such as social constructivism. After reading a couple brief pages n that and social constructionism I am still baffled as to what they might be or why they would be valuable.



The best information I have is that he wanted to use mustard gas, was denied permission, and used conventional weapons instead, but that's a minor issue.

The problem as well with that question is simple: It does not all happen at one time. Presumably, the locals at the time wanted the British to leave. They eventually, did leave. In other places, like Viet Nam, the locals have then been content to start trying to clean up the mess. However, in other places, especially the middle east, the result seems to have been a period of interlude with focus on Israel and failed attempts at Pan-Arabism followed by a need starting in the 1970s to begin antagonizing the people who already left.



I don't think the U.S. in particular really had much of a history in the Middle East prior to WWII. It would seem that we only became interested in the area as a need for oil, and later the need to deny it to the Soviets became apparent. I suppose, however, that this speaks to your point since the lack of education only facilitates the conflation of the U.S. with other colonial powers.



Well, it would seem to me that those areas largely confined their antagonism to their own territory and the perceived occupiers. The need to keep poking the bear does not seem to have been present there.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I quite understand why Bin Laden and his ilk would send people there. I don't however, see the appeal to the people actually being sent.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

National Draw Muhammad Day is coming!

It's entirely possible they didn't have the wherewithal to continue poking the bear; or, as is likely the case, the bear responded differently than it has with regard to the Middle East.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

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f you Chaudhry Zulfikar Ali, f your family, f your pets. F your supporters, hell F your entire culture and way of life. Die.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I'm curious if you somehow think you're better than that lawyer. I'm similarly curious if the answer is yes, how you could possibly come to that conclusion when you seem to regularly spew this kind of bile around here. There are more constructive and healthy outlets for your anger issues.

I'm going to guess it's because the lawyer is arguing against freedom.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Yes, we wouldn't want to spew bile at a hidebound overreacting ******* that's contributing to exactly the sort of uninformed uneducated populace Khross and I are talking about.

Way to go with the amateur psychotherapy.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I watched this video and thought of this thread.

[youtube]5lsY5BaKhuQ[/youtube]

Lenas, can't watch from work... is that where they get chased from the gas station?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yeah, self-proclaimed hicks throwing rocks at them under the assumption of homosexuality and NASCAR hate.

That was a good one. What I often wonder, particularly in that scene, but in many others as well, is how much is staged. After all, earlier in the episode they walk up to some people who are very likely "urban unlicensed pharmaceutical retailers" with zero issues whatsoever.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yeh, but those guys were in sales You never throw rocks at potential customers

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Holy shitsnacks!

True. Most dealers are cool until you owe them something.