Benny_

Any of you UK gents see the BBC Power of Nightmares programmes over the last 3 weeks?

Not sure if they'll be screened over in the US, but if not you could get them here
www.suprnova.org, do a search for 'bbc nightmare'. It's a three part (each 1 hour) 'documenatry' on the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and the creation of nightmare scenarios by the neo-conservatives to control the masses.

It was very interesting and well worth a look which ever side you are on.

leejo

I haven't seen this flick but the one sentence above caught my eye and says a lot, in my opinion.

It seems to assume that "the masses" are stupid and that once again the conservatives have tricked them into taking action that's contrary to their self-interest. Even if that's the case, why are the liberals taking the position that the neo-conservatives aren't playing "fair" when maybe another interpretation is that the liberals have, once again, failed to come up with a winning plan to sell their strategy and vision to "the masses"?

The best car salesman on earth could only sell Yugos to hicks for so long. At the end of the day all these stupid people beging for someone to control them demand something substantial. And a salesman who insults his potential customers will have a hard time making a living selling BMWs.

"The masses" are who the masses are, and whether or not they're too stupid to vote for the correct party is a problem the liberals in every country are going to have to live with. But 'till then, by all means keep blaming the neo-cons for your failures at the polls.

I don't know if I'm a neo-con or not, but it is awfully considerate of the terrorists to keep blowing up a hotel or a school every couple of months to help the neo-cons out. That, on the face of things, makes the film's position seem pretty silly, but like I said I haven't seen it and so can't really say.

Benny_

I was just emptying what I remembered of it.

There is some tenuous stuff in there, but it starts about Egypt and the Muslim view that it's ok to kill those who aren't muslim, and it kinda accelerates from there. The creation of the evil soviets, etc etc.

I'm not saying its gospel, but it is worth a watch.


A link...I'm nice like that..

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/10/24/115621/52
http://www.iconoplex.co.uk/node/40
Edit: I'll keep adding as it reminds me....the vision of Russia that was portrayed (exagerrated/lied about) during the cold war was intriguing. Ah, what do I know, watch it!!

H-Hour

That's not exactly a mainstream Muslim view - at least not in theory. Theology always gets mixed up with politics and sociology, but it's not a widely held belief that Muslims have free license to kill non-Muslims. There are actually parts of the Koran that instruct Muslims to take care of non-Muslims. It's not "the Christian view" that protesting a gay man's funeral with signs that say "God Hates Fags" is ok, but that doesn't stop some morons from saying it is. It's not "the Christian view" that it's ok to kill non-Christians, but we've always been more willing to wage war against non-Christian-based cultures.

leejo

Is that really true? Without consulting the tomes, the two world wars were basically Christians fighting each other, most of the history of the Christian world has been Christian fighting Christian. At least it seems that way to me shooting from the hip.

TheFeniX

I've found it more of a convenient excuse in order to wage war against another.

"They aren't Christian, so we must do what we can to enlighten them."
"They aren't true Christians and have fallen from Gods path."

It's the same reasoning (or lack of) these KKK or Neo-Nazi scum adhere to. They inflict violence on whites and blacks/Jews (not that I'm saying they in any way deserve what happens to them). Their excuse is that whites who try and help and just as bad because of X reasoning different from theirs.

It's a mean to feel justified in hating someone who is in actuality like you. He has hopes and dreams, family, and is (more than likely) a good person. When you demonize them (rather through religion, upbringing, wealth), it makes it easier for the average fighter to kill them. Religion is just the easiest to manipulate people to respond to.

__________________

leejo

That may be true but I still don't recall seeing that used as justification for any of the wars the USA has involved itself in. There's a lot of anti-muslim propoganda flying around right now, but WWI wasn't about how the germans were the "wrong" sort of Christians, WWII wasn't about it again nor have I ever seen that Buddhists were bad so we had to kill Japanese. Off the top of my head thinking about the wars in which Europe has involved itself, religion has rarely been an issue.

USN_Squid

Acutally only the ones doing the killing believe that. Of course some others see it as okay, but don't do the killing. And then there's those that don't think it's right but won't stand up and say anything about it. I have seen some Muslim writings saying killing infidels is wrong, but they seem to be in right of center media outlets and don't get much exposure. So, it may not be a widely held belief by the majority of Muslims, but what is the effect of their indifference if not approval?

A quote from the review Benny linked:
The "Islamists" take the right to kill everybody who is not a Muslim according to their definition of "Muslim" and believe in saving the world by means of terrorism. (empahsis mine).

__________________

IceCold

I'm not quite sure which "we" you're referring to, but looking back over the conflicts of the past 50 years involving muslims, I'd say that the United States has a pretty good record of defending muslims.

TheFeniX

They are rare, but they tend to be fairly bloody. The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisitions come to mind. The entirety of the American colonization. In recent years, it's not brought into play in many conflicts, but it is an issue.

Look at some cusory google image searches on "WWII propganda:"
One
Two

I'm not saying that all conflicts are a religious thing, but usually when Religion is brought into a conflict, it's used to demonize the other side so you feel better about gunning them down. Why do you think many games/movies either have or base the bad guys around Nazis? They've been de-humanized for some long the average person sees them only as blood-thirsty maniacs. Put someone in a Nazi uniform and you can look at him like he's not even a human anymore.

__________________

DudeMan

very true,

h-hour you have been sucked in by the claims by the muslim population that its about us vs them. its not, its about freedom and terrorism. and lets not confuse this further. the United Kingdom faces a problem (although not so much now) with Christian people in Ireland, to be precise protestant and catholics. this war has been on and off for decades and beyond. but now all of a sudden because the focus is on the muslim community more and more people feel they can play the poor mistreated forigner card.

sorry your comment frankly dissapoints me more than anything because it shows that people are taking this more seriously than a joke. christians have waged war on each other for centuries, and this war on terror is nothing more than that, do not confuse it as christians vs muslims. its more about democracy and freedom vs oppression.

__________________


The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

DudeMan

also very true whether people choose to accept it or not the kosovo conflict, was a religious based war, the muslims were infact being ethnically cleansed.

now if we christians who would not wage war with each other for dirty muslims were infact the people that live in my country and yours. how come we sorted that problem out pronto....

and not too long ago.. its pure victim status and sympathy playing.

__________________


The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

H-Hour

First off, I was misunderstood. Of course we're not going to openly use "they're not Christian" as justification on a political level. I didn't say that. I'm talking about how easy it is for a society to accept the slaughter of another people - not to mention the effect of cultural and "moral" difference as a killing enabler (read "On Killing: The Cost of Learning To Kill In War And Society", I dare you, I ****ing dare you, I've said it enough on this God Damn Forum, go read it.).

Our bombing campaign in Japan was horrendous - many times that of the carnage in Europe - and yet, in America, we barely hear about that aspect of WWII (or the Africa part), apart from the dropping of the nukes. In Vietnam, our military campaign completely dessimated a civilian population and yet we only pulled out our troops when the cost was too high on our soldiers. We slaughtered the Native Americans. Possibly the largest genocide in the last few centuries and we have barely begun to confront that.

Of course, through all these conflicts, and the conflict in Iraq today, we have Christian religious leaders condoning and encouraging the killing of another people for political or social reasons (that "God Bless America, Pass the Ammo" **** is an extreme example). My point is that, these condemnations come much quicker and thicker when the enemy is culturally distant, and religion is a big part of that cultural distance.

Now, the point of all this is to put comments like, "the Muslim view that it's ok to kill those who aren't muslim" into context, into perspective, because it's so easy to look at it and say, "That's ****ed." But we do it every day. We just did it when we elected Bush president. We said, "It's ok to kill another people for political motives."

Slaughter. That is the effect of all of our indifference to the game of political superiority. Indifference is the point I'm trying to make through all of this. We've all abandoned our theology when we choose to be indifferent to the killing of another people - Muslims no more then Christians no more then Jews.

CingularDuality

That's not what we said. We said, "It's OK to kill another people when they're trying to kill us."

How in the world did you make that entire post and comletely ignore the fact that we no longer have WTC towers?

Killing for "political motives"? Are you crazy?

There's a large group of people out there that want to destroy our way of life! How would YOU deal with them?

__________________

Become a supporting member!

Buy a Tactical Duck!
Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage."
TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Benny_

It's the last line of that reply Cing that the program addresses. Take a look if you can.