Sept. 21, 2006
Being Nice Will Get Us Killed
NRO: Enough With The Olive Branches To The Islamofascists
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Pope Seeks Religious Dialogue
Pope Benedict XVI attempted to soothe relations with the Muslim world. Speaking under tight security, he said he hopes his remarks will lead to a dialogue among religions. Charlie D'Agata reports.
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Notebook: Muslims React
Only On The Web: Katie Couric discusses the fallout from the Pope's remarks on Islam.
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Muslim Anger At Pope
The Rev. Jonathan Morris, vice-rector of the Legionnaires of Christ Seminary in Rome, CBS News Middle East analyst Reza Aslan and Julie Chen discuss the Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict's remarks.
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Many Muslims are still condemning the pope's remarks. (CBS)
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Pope Sparks Outcry
Protests fueled by anger over comments by Pope Benedict XVI construed as anti-Islam.
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The Fundamentals Of Islam
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War On Terror
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From the Vatican to the Pentagon, goodwill gestures offered to the Muslim world too often blow up in the West's collective face. The nicer we are to them, the harsher they are to us.
The olive branch Pope Benedict XVI extended to Muslims is obscured by the smoke that has billowed since his address at Bavaria's Regensburg University. The pope cited a conversation between "an educated Persian" and the 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus. They discussed, the pope said Sept. 7, "the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both." He then quoted Paleologus who said: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The pope described this comment's "startling brusqueness" and later recommended a "genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today." He added: "we invite our partners" into such discourse.
The pope's call for Christian and Islamic interchange ignited days of Muslim rage. Demonstrators in London waved placards that read "Islam will conquer Rome" and "Jesus is the slave of Allah."
"You infidels and despots," the Mujahedeen Shura Council warned in an online communiqué, "we will continue our jihad and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks."
Muslim hotheads torched seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Likely infuriated by the pope's speech, two gunmen in Mogadishu, Somalia, fatally shot Sister Leonella Sgorbati, 65, four times in her back. They also killed a bodyguard at the children's hospital where the Catholic nun worked.
Oh, well. So much for dialogue.
Great Britain has shown great sensitivity toward Muslims, some 1.6 million of whom live there in peace; some even serve in Parliament. After a Muslim employee complained, municipal workers in Dudley were told to remove pig-related items from their desks, including one worker's tissue box decorated with Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. As Mark Steyn explained last spring, local councilor Mahbubur Rahman endorsed the ban on objects festooned with pigs, which Muslims consider unclean. "It is a good thing," Rahman said. "It is a tolerance and acceptance of their beliefs and understanding."
The British National Health Service recently unveiled a veil it calls "the Inter-faith Gown." This is, essentially, an institutional-green burqa with which devout Muslim women can cover themselves from head to toe in public hospitals.
So far, such political correctness has failed to cool the ire of radical Muslims. British police on Sept. 2 arrested 14 men
U.S. officials offered an olive branch of sorts to 190 top Taliban fighters last July. An unmanned Predator drone spotted them in Afghanistan, lined up virtually in formation. Given this golden opportunity to liquidate nearly 10 score of America's most bloodthirsty enemies, U.S. military commanders balked. The Taliban members were at a funeral, and Pentagon rules of engagement prevent attacks in cemeteries. So the Taliban forces casually dispersed. Military officials told NBC News they had "no regrets" about their decision. (It would behoove the New York Times to learn that the patriots at NBC first persuaded the Pentagon to declassify a Predator photo of the Taliban fighters before it broadcast that war-zone image.)
The Taliban subsequently has hammered Coalition forces in some of that conflict's most intense combat yet. They also showed no American-style mercy at the funeral last Sept. 11 of Paktia Provincial Gov. Abdul Hakim Taniwal. A suicide bomber used that occasion in Khost to kill six mourners and injure 25 others. The previous day, a Taliban suicide bomber had killed Taniwal, his nephew, and his bodyguard.
Amid such mounting carnage, GOP Sens. Susan Collins, Lindsay Graham, John McCain and John Warner have joined Democrats to limit President Bush's plan to keep interrogating terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay within Geneva Convention restrictions the Supreme Court imposed last June.
These gelatinous Republicans must believe America tortures Gitmo detainees — never mind the taxpayer-funded, culturally correct meals, library books, and the extensive worship, recreation, dental care, and medicine these Islamofascists enjoy. Tough questioning, such as "waterboarding" or simulated drowning, makes terrorists talk. That's how U.S. interrogators encouraged Khalid Sheik Mohammed to detail how he masterminded al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks. He then ratted out Hambali, the man behind the October 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202, and "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. Both are now safely in custody.
Al Qaeda honcho Abu Zubaida stayed quiet until interrogators stuck him in a cold room and blasted the corrosive music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Zubaida cried uncle and began to talk. He helped America find terrorists Ramzi bin-al-Shibh in Pakistan, Amar-al-Faruq in Indonesia, Rahim al-Nashiri in Kuwait, and Muhammad al Darbi in Yemen.
These interrogations help America connect the dots. Stopping them, as McCain and company would do, disconnects the dots. This likely will blow more Americans to smithereens.
If McCain and his pals worry about torture, they should ponder the daily agony of the loved ones of the people who were killed on Sept. 11 and never even recovered from ground zero. Assuring that Islamic fanatics never again vaporize Americans is why we must squeeze captured terrorists until they sing.
Throwing olive branches at Islamofascists is beyond futile. This is the war on terror, not the Summer Olympics on terror. If America won't fight this like a war — and win — we might as well cut our losses, hand out the Qurans, and start the mass conversions.
Deroy Murdock is a New York-based columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
By Deroy Murdock
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.
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These people are raised in hatred and suspicion.
That is all they know.
These people are raised in hatred and suspicion.
That is all they know."
I agree. They were raised in hatred and suspicion, I grew up in the American country with many of them, and many of my friends attended the churches where the hatred, bigotry, and violence was spouted by dark angry men every Sunday. They brought Hell right to earth, blaming and condemning everyone but themselves for their own misdeeds. I spent Saturday night with them too, where they acted out evil actions, drunkenness, anger, violence and beating of their children, sick black envy and lust dripping from them as they condemned what they called harlots. Corruption of diverse kind. Then Sunday morning again, and in hysterical passion they recounted and gloried the crucifixion of our Lord with a satisfaction and relish that betrayed which side of those deeds they really would have preferred.
But they are our countrymen, and I believe deep inside many of them there is a decent and hurt little child who only lost their way. The beatings, the threats of Hell, the condemnation, it has hurt them and made them hard, dangerous and prone to war.
Yes they are a huge danger to America at this point, though. So it's difficult - what do we do to reign in their warmongering and violence before they get us all killed? Any suggestions?
Sigh. Must I repeat again - we didn't torture Japanese during an actual declared war, WWII. And we won. They did torture Americans. and they lost. They tortured and lost. We didn't torture and won.
How to say it? How to get through? are the neo-cons taking drugs? Why is i they can't hear?
Nazis -torture Nazis - defeat
Soviet Union - torture Soviet Union - defeat
WWII Japanese - torture - lost - defeated
America pr- Bush - no torture - win - victory
no torture = victory
torture = failure and defeat
constant throughout modern history
please, neo-cons, read a book.
Do you seriously want us to wait here for them to come to us? Do you want to fight on the streets of America? The enemy has sworn, publically and on record, to annhiliate the West. Giving them access to our soil seems a bit naive. If we had picked a fight we could win in 1941 we never would have opposed Japan and Germany. The war at that time was unwinnable and did not turn to our favor until the battle of Midway in June of '42. You don't pick and chose wars that are winnable you fight, with determination the ones that must be fought. And this in one of them, not here on American streets but where the terrorists live and train.
I am not clear what any of the commenters here are desiring. Lay down arms? Fight an enemy when he shoots at you but that's it? How will it play out when you get it?
It seems you always have to be a wee bit nastier than people expect or else you're disregarded. Loud music/cold surely will make you talk. Not quite the same as acid baths, a la Hussein. Note how well he kept people in line.
If I understood what the 'Terrorists' actually wanted, I'd have a sense of what's acceptable behavior/rules. If it is an Islam-dominated world, I don't think that's a goal that the "free" world should support.
As long as someone is peaceful and conspicuously law abiding, the "free" world mostly leaves them alone. Sure, there are plenty of American rednecks, but they don't usually make the rules. Not these days.
We're screwed as we want to be thought "nice"/"accepting". Slim chance if this is a battle against "lawlessness", basically community standards of acceptable behavior, UN or US or EU or something (murder, etc. is bad). As long as it's considered a Holy war, it's untenable and unwinnable.
Again, I wonder, what do you people want to have happen?
Would the Nazis have gone nuts and attacked everyone if we'd committed to jumping in the fray the second they whacked Poland(which I have to assume had friendly relations with)??
Their theories of supremacy might have meant they'd still go forward, but I suspect they wouldn't have been so cocksure.
If the UN were ever united, there's be some threat there. But, the "terrorists" are sure they have impunity. Kind of like ol' Adolf did.
That aside, I really get tired though of the use of Nazi being thrown at people in this country. There are surely a few people who deserve it but it's a huge overstatement considering what all they did.
But then, we still have Holocaust deniers. Both the Nazi caused one and the Turkish caused one.
Thank you for your reply. I too think that the Nazi term is thrown around to excess. One reading of "The Battle For Rome" by Robert Katz will show anyone who reads it what "Nazi" means. Last comment; If we could but speak the truth and work together for a reasoned response to our troubles I think we'd have it. Pie-in-the-sky I know but worth reaching for.
P. J. Audinet Sr.
Proud son of T/5 C.E. Audinet KIA 4/26/45
The Pope got caught slamming Islam as "evil" and can't man up and admit that he put his papal foot in his papal mouth.
"The Pope qoutes a perspective which he later staes that he does not espouse. What hooey! When have popes made statements supporting abortion rights or *** marraige which they don't espouse?
The Pope got caught slamming Islam as "evil" and can't man up and admit that he put his papal foot in his papal mouth."
Worst case is that the Pope's intent was to blaspheme Islam. You know what - that *** happens everyday - someone commits blasphemy against other faiths. Muslims should get over it. Their faith does not give them any free pass to kill people because they were defamed.
Thanks for your service to our country, exusmcsgt.
vietvet
Imagine how many more crimes could be solved if the police were allowed to torture, instead of prohibited from coercing confessions. As a protection, we should only allow verifiable details to be used as evidence (to prevent forcing false confessions). The key is to get the facts by force.
This would be a boon to law enforcement in everything from murder, rape, and robbery to traffic violations and teen drug use. Just the fear of interrogation would probably reduce crime dramatically, especially if the methods often resulted in "accidental" death of the suspects.
Yes, we have within our reach the ability to solve not only the terrorist problem, but all criminality if we just have the backbone to do it. Take the gloves off. Show the world America has the courage to do what is necessary. All that is required is a permanent detour through hell.
And MarkS7177 above forgets that there wouldn't have ever been a WWII in the first place if the rest of the world hadn't been to committed to appeasement in the first place: As Churchhill said, the cause of WWII was "because the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous." The world was trying to reason with a virus.
How is it that we allow the most recalcitrant, leaste motivated, most intolerant among us call all the shots?
What the heck is an Islamofacist? Fascism means nationalism, control by/for corporations, and authoritarianism. Terrorists do not have a state, or corporations. So what do they have to do with fascism?
Islamic fundamentalists is what we are really talking about. Islamofascist isn't a word it's a BS Repub talking point.
Even more ridiculous is telling McCain to ponder agony. Who is better qualified to speak on torture, someone who spent 5 years in a POW camp or Deroy Murdock sitting in his air-conditioned office?
Game, set and match to you. You're alot smarter than I am. You have all the answers so I'll leave you to it. I will say that you are right about appeasement. Remember that all the time while Bush was inspecting and waiting and waiting, Sadam was setting us up. We were just to naive to see it, or our ego was hiding it, as it does many of our mistakes. God be with you, young man.
Oh, by the way, What is YOUR solution to our delemma in Iraq and Afghanistan? I would like to know how you, as President are going to pull my son out from under those rocket attacks. Don't give me speaches and Bush slams, give me a solution.
What does that mean? Who are you addressing?
The war on terrorism is ultimately a moral war, and when the US and its allies act respectfully and responsibly, we win. When we perform blatently immoral acts (and who can call torture moral?), we lose.
I realize and accept the author's point that acting morally will not deter extremist. What the author does not understand is that the "olive branch" he refers to is not really for the extremist, its for the millions of moderate Muslims who need to know that we are sain, rational people and that our war on terror is not aimed at them - it is aimed at the immoral individuals who want to attack us. Olive branches do not stop the terrorist of today - they help prevent ordinary Muslims from becoming the terrorist of tomorrow.
The author takes the basic position "if its OK for the terrorist to act this way, why isn't it OK for us to act this way?" I will defer to what my mother (and I'm sure everyone's mother) always said - if someone jumped off a cliff, should you?
We know where some of the terrorist training camps are. Wipe them off the face of the earth. Stop worrying about collateral damage. If you want to get those people's attention, the only way we have not tried is with unilateral force. Has anyone heard from Libya lately? Don't waste the Army and the Marines. Use the Air Force.
We can hardly hold our enemies to rules protecting our men and women from cruel treatment if we choose to throw the rules out the window.
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by thgdriver
September 23, 2006 12:23 PM PDT
- So now it's being suggested that "only" us Republicans need and or use oil [Petro]. I drive to work 6 days, sometimes 7, days a week, how come I don't see any Democrats showing their disdain for oil by pedeling their bikes or skateing along our roads?
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See all 31 CommentsIt just never ends!!!!