Lebell

This is a rather long read from the National Review that I thought stated very well what I feel is wrong with the Democratic Party and the left in general.

I know that not everyone left of center fails to address these things and that sweeping generalizations are always suspect, but I definitely felt agreement, especially when the author talks about Hollywood elitism.

(And note that if all you can do is criticize the source and not address the points, please don't bother.)
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http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson...0412170839.asp

December 17, 2004, 8:39 a.m.

Cracked Icons
Why the Left has lost credibility.

by Victor Davis Hanson

There is much talk of post-election reorganization and rethinking among demoralized liberals, especially in matters of foreign policy. They could start by accepting that the demise of many of their cherished beliefs and institutions was not the fault of others. More often, the problems are fundamental flaws in their own thinking — such as the ends of good intentions justifying the means of expediency and untruth, and forced equality being a higher moral good than individual liberty and freedom. Whether we call such notions “political correctness” or “progressivism,” the practice of privileging race, class, and gender over basic ethical considerations has earned the moralists of the Left not merely hypocrisy, but virtual incoherence.


Democratic leaders are never going to be trusted in matters of foreign policy unless they can convince Americans that they once more believe in American exceptionalism and are the proper co-custodians of values such as freedom and individual liberty. If in the 1950s rightists were criticized as cynical Cold Warriors who never met a right-wing thug they wouldn’t support, as long as he mouthed a few anti-Soviet platitudes, then in the last two decades almost any thug from Latin America to the Middle East who professed concern for “the people” — from Castro and the Noriega Brothers to Yasser Arafat and the Iranian mullahs — was likely to earn a pass from the American and European cultural elite and media. To regain credibility, the Left must start to apply the same standard of moral outrage to a number of its favorite causes that it does to the United States government, the corporations, and the Christian Right. Here are a few places to start.

1. There really isn’t a phenomenon like “Islamophobia” — at least no more than there was a “Germanophobia” in hating Hitler or “Russophobia” in detesting Stalinism. Any unfairness or rudeness that accrues from the “security profiling” of Middle Eastern young males is dwarfed by efforts of Islamic fascists themselves — here in the U.S., in the U.K., the Netherlands, France, Turkey, and Israel — to murder Westerners and blow up civilians. The real danger to thousands of innocents is not an occasional evangelical zealot or uncouth politician spouting off about Islam, but the deliberately orchestrated and very sick anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism that floods the airways worldwide, emanating from Iran, Lebanon, and Syria, to be sure, but also from our erstwhile “allies” in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.

So both here and abroad, the Western public believes that there is a double standard in the moral judgment of our left-leaning media, universities, and politicians — that we are not to supposed to ask how Christians are treated in Muslim societies, only how free Islamists in Western mosques are to damn their hosts; or that we are to think beheading, suicide murdering, and car bombing moral equivalents to the sexual humiliation and roguery of Abu Ghraib — apparently because the former involves post-colonial victims and the latter privileged, exploitive Americans. Most sane people, however, privately disagree, and distinguish between a civilian’s head rolling on the ground and a snap shot of an American guard pointing at the genitalia of her terrorist ward.

Moreover, few of any note in the Arab Middle East speak out against the racial hatred of Jews. Almost no major Islamic religious figure castigates extreme Muslim clerics for their Dark-age misogyny, anti-Semitism, and venom against the West; and no Arab government admonishes its citizenry to look to itself for solutions rather than falling prey to conspiracy theories and ago-old superstitions. It would be as if the a state-subsidized Ku Klux Klan or the American Nazi party were to be tolerated for purportedly voicing the frustrations of poor working-class whites who “suffered” under a number of supposed grievances.

What is preached in the madrassas on the West Bank, in Pakistan, and throughout the Gulf is no different from the Nazi doctrine of racial hatred. What has changed, of course, is that unlike our grandfathers, we have lost the courage to speak out against it. In one of the strangest political transformations of our age, the fascist Islamic Right has grafted its cause onto that of the Left’s boutique “multiculturalism,” hoping to earn a pass for its hate by posing as the “other” and reaping the benefits of liberal guilt due to purported victimization. By any empirical standard, what various Palestinian cliques have done on the West Bank — suicide murdering, lynching without trial of their own people, teaching small children to hate and kill Jews — should have earned them all Hitlerian sobriquets rather than U.N. praise.

2. “Imperialism” and “hegemony” explain nothing about recent American intervention abroad — not when dictators such as Noriega, Milosevic, the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein were taken out by the U.S. military. There are no shahs and Your Excellencies in their places, but rather consensual governments whose only sin was that they came on the heels of American arms rather than U.N. collective snoozing. There really was no secret Afghan pipeline behind toppling the Taliban, nor a French-like oil concession to be had for the United States from the new Iraqi interim government. Many of Michael Moore’s heroic “Minutemen” of the Sunni Triangle are hired killers — hooded fascists in the pay of ex-Baathists and Saddamites, along with Islamic terrorists and jihadists who hate the very idea of democracy in the heart of the Arab world. The collective cursus honorum of these Saddamite holdovers during the last two decades — gassing the Kurds, committing atrocities against the Iranians, looting and pillaging in Kuwait, launching missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia, slaughtering Shiites and again Kurds, and assassinating Western and U.N. aid workers — rank right up there with the work of the SS and KGB.

Reformers like Allawi and Yawar of Iraq are not “puppets” but far better advocates of democratic reform than anyone else in the Arab world. Nor does “no blood for oil” mean anything when an increasingly small percentage of American-imported petroleum comes from the Gulf, and when an oil-hungry China — without much deference to liberal sensibilities — is driving up the world price, eyeing every well it can for future exploitation without regard for political or environmental niceties.

3. It won’t do any longer to attribute American outrage over the U.N. to a vast right-wing conspiracy led by red-state senators and Fox News. All the standing ovations for Kofi Annan cannot hide the truth that the Oil-for-Food scandal exceeds Enron. Indeed, Ken Lay’s malfeasance never involved the deaths of thousands, while cronies siphoned off food and supplies from a starving populace. The U.S. military does not tolerate mass rape and plunder among its troops, as is true of the U.N. peacekeepers throughout Africa. There can be no serious U.N. moral sense as long as illiberal regimes — a Syria, Iran, or Cuba — vote in the General Assembly and the Security Council stymies solutions out of concern for an autocratic China that swallowed Tibet. Millions were slaughtered in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur while New York bureaucrats either condemned Israel or damned anyone who censured their own inaction and corruption. Rather than faulting those who fault the U.N., leftists should lament the betrayal of the spirit of the liberal U.N. Charter by regimes that are neither democratic nor liberal but who seek legitimacy solely on their ability to win concessions and sympathy from guilt-ridden Westerners.

4. So it is also time to take a hard look at the heroes and villains of Hollywood, liberal Democrats, and the Euro elites. Many are as obsessed with damning the senile dictator of Chile as they are with excusing the unelected President for Life Fidel Castro. But let us be frank. A murderous Pinochet probably killed fewer of his own than did a mass-murdering Castro, and left Chile in better shape than contemporary Cuba is in. And the former is long gone, while the latter is still long in power.

Similarly, Nobel Prizes increasingly go to either unsavory or unhinged characters. Yasser Arafat was a known killer and terrorist, not a global peacemaker. Wangari Maathai’s public statements about AIDS are puerile and ipso facto would have eliminated any Westerner from consideration for anything. Rigoberta Menchu Tum herself was a half-truth, her story mostly a creation of a westernized academic publishing elite. Jimmy Carter’s 2002 award was not predicated on his past work on housing for the poor, but his critically timed and calculated opposition to George W. Bush’s effort to topple Saddam Hussein — as was confirmed by the receptive Nobel Committee itself. Recent winners Kofi Annan and Kim Dae-jung are now better known for having their own sons involved in influence-peddling and bribery while they oversaw bureaucrats who trafficked in millions with unsavory murderers like Kim Jong-Il and Saddam Hussein. In short, such an august prize has come a long way from Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. — and precisely because it has privileged leftist rhetoric over real morality.

If the moralizing Left wants to be taken seriously, it is going have to become serious about its own moral issues, since that is the professed currency of contemporary liberalism. Otherwise, the spiritual leaders who lecture us all on social justice, poverty, and truth will remain the money-speculator George Soros, the Reverend Jesse Jackson of dubious personal and professional ethics, and the mythographer Michael Moore. And we all know where that leads…

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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molloby

"Many of Michael Moore’s heroic “Minutemen” of the Sunni Triangle are hired killers — hooded fascists in the pay of ex-Baathists and Saddamites, along with Islamic terrorists and jihadists who hate the very idea of democracy in the heart of the Arab world."

"Reformers like Allawi and Yawar of Iraq are not “puppets” but far better advocates of democratic reform than anyone else in the Arab world."

I love the way he talks about hired killers and then in the next paragraph refers glowingly to Allawi; A man who was a hit man for Saddam Hussein. Don't tell me that the installation of Allawi has any real legitimacy, or that he is any better than the Governors of British colonial past.

flstf

Republicans-Democrats. Democrats-Republicans. Put them in a bag and shake them all up and you can't tell the difference. There is probably nothing wrong with the Democratic party, at least not in the sense that caused them to loose the election.

People like Victor Davis Hanson and others that think deeply about the issues have already made their minds up. The national election is won or lost by the likeability of the candidate to those voters that don't pay such close attention to the issues.

A guy with the southern charm of say Bill Clinton would have probably won.

By the way, I agree with much of what the article points out as well.

Locobot

I love how the conservatives try to claim MLK as one of their own in recent years yet they opposed his every move while he lived. Why no mention of his womanizing?

Lebell

The only reference to MLK I saw was in the context of past Peace Prize winners to current winners, so I don't understand what your comment has to do with the points of the original post.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Locobot

Are you and Hanson seriously claiming that MLK didn't engage in leftist rhetoric?

Lebell

Again, I re-read the article and didn't see a "glowing" recommendation, but an acknowledgment that Allawi is a reformer and a better man for the job than many.

He certainly has an interesting past and there are accusations that he worked for the Iraqi secret police in England, but considering that Saddam tried to have him murdered indicates that they weren't buddies.

Also, since when has an installed "colonial governor" criticized the installers? Allawi certainly has had harsh words for us. But then again, the whole imperal/colonism idea is absurd when you look at then and now and compare the facts.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Lebell

I don't see that it is relevant to the discussion. MLK's peace work stands on it's own without my liking everything the man believed in.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Locobot

MLK's "real morality" is inseperable from his "leftist rhetoric." All of his "peace work" (marching) was done in support and coordination with his leftist rhetoric. How Hanson is able to differentiate between them is beyond me.

Lebell

And I would submit that his 'leftist rhetoric' as you put it would have spoken out against the double standard of the current left that Hanson pointed out, which I think was part of the point.

Or are you arguing that the right has no "real morality" by benefit of being to the right?

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Mojo_PeiPei

Did the point get missed Loco, how MLK was actually a man of peace, and yet Yassir Arafat, a terrorist, was able to get an award dedicated to peace?

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Lebell

I don't think this is too small a point to make: 'leftist rhetoric' of the sixties results in MLK getting the Peace Prize whereas 'leftist rhetoric' of the nineties results in Arafat getting the Prize.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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guy44

This is bullshit and everyone knows it. Any time one side tries to offer its opinion on whats wrong with the other side, it just condescendingly projects all of its anger at the other's opinions. Which clearly happens here.

The left never fucking does this, at least as far as I know. I hope nobody on the left tries to, because it is a stupid activity for anyone to engage in, of either side. The right always seems delighted to pull this bullshit. When I want to know what the National Review thinks, I'll turn on Fox News and pick up my copy of Mein Kampf (thats a joke people). But seriously, I don't care what those wingnuts think, nor does anyone on the left.

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Mojo_PeiPei

Just like Lebell had noted, and asked, all you did was attack the source rather then the points made.

Also your point that the left never does this is just laughable, and at best wrong.

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Lebell

guy44,

After some consideration, I will let your post stand, BUT!

The only anger I've seen so far has been in your post. If you want to address the points or disagree, fine, but I consider your post to be fairly rude and borderline as far as forum rules are concerned.

And I'll post links to all the posts about Bush and the Right that I've seen over the last few months saying what is wrong with them because I've certainly seen them. As to this particular article, you have not addressed a single point before dismissing it out of hand.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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ARTelevision

It does seem to me, were I a practical political strategist on the left, that I would owe it to the future and viability of my various constituencies to consider just these questions as are raised in the thread starter.

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Manx

Nah. The best way to combat stupidity is to let stupidity destroy itself.

I have only so far skimmed the article, but portions of it that I read are full of assumptions and heavy-handed distortions. If this is to be considered a valuable critique of the "left", I can only chuckle. It seems the underlying point of the article is that the "left" is somehow hypocritical. As if the "right" is not, and as if it is just this hypocrisy on the part of the "left" that produced the election result. That is nonsense. flstf is correct: the election is based on likability. Substance is ignored and if it is not, it is distorted into lies. The theoretical elimination of hypocrisy by either "side" is not going to change any of that. Particularly when one side is pointing to the other and exclaiming "You're a hypocrite!" It serves no purpose other than to continue to same old rhetoric.

I'm almost suprised you, ARTelevision, would encourage such an article. But then again, I'm not.

ARTelevision

Well then, in every other field of competitive endeavor, losing brings with it some sportsmanly acknowledgement of the well-executed tactics of the opposition as well as some critique of the losing side's execution. But hey, if that's not in the cards, then so be it.

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create evolution

Manx

In every (most) other fields of competitive endeavor, the people involved have integrity.

But here, we're talking about politicians and professional political pundits - so integrity is not on the table.

Or -

The contest never ends, so there is never a chance for congratulations/analysis of fault. Nov. 3rd was day 1 of the next battle in the everlasting fight for power.

This article is nothing more than a weapon being used to attack the enemy.

Rekna

I'll attack a point. "There is no islamaphobia in america"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141915,00.html

Mojo_PeiPei

Maybe there is something to that Rekna. Not saying restricting civil liberties is the answer, but there is definitly something to notion that Islam is becoming a problem in the world at large.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

irateplatypus

good post lebell. i'm don't encourage those cheesy internet challenges where one side posts something and challenges the other side to refute them (not that you offered such a thing, just saying i won't add one to the discussion)... but i must say that the responses so far haven't dismantled the article's points in the least.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Rekna

That is sad, you don't know what Islam is about if you believe that it is the problem. I know many muslims that are wonderful people and are just as good as the best Christians. The problem is with extreamists of any kind. Extreamists who are intollerent of other people are the source of the problem, people who say you are with us or against us.

Zeld2.0

Islam has existed for 1400 years - it in its first 400 years cared little of the outside world and rarely came in contact with it.

It has existed as a major religion but the problem of radicals is true in every society since the dawn of organized societies (and even before).

And I am not surprised America would have a large population of people who have an "islamaphobia" - given that America is heavily Christian, and given the history of antagonization between the two (its almost a tradition honestly), it is not surprising.

Mojo_PeiPei

I don't know what Islam is about?

Let's look at it this way, best case scenario the religion, one of the worlds biggest as well as fastest growing, has been hijacked by radicals.

Look at Sharian rule. Sudan, a country ran by religious leaders, as we all know who are running genocide on the Christians and animists of the south. Worlds largest and most active slave trade. Millions of casulties.

Saudia Arabia. A country ran by the most radical and violent brand of Islam, Wahabism. A country that is one of the biggest supporters of terrorism ala Palestine. A country were it's 22 million citizens are forcefully indoctrinated with one major tenet, death, death to Israel, death to America, death to the West. A country that along with Egypt has given birth to the most current state of Islamofacism. A country that exports it's brand of Islam, wahabism, as one of the biggest growing schools of Muslim thought in the West.

Iran. A revolution of the people put these despot Mullahs in power. No free elections, and wow another striking coincidence, another exporter of state funded and backed terrorism. A country that illegally is trying to acquire nuclear arms, upon resolution of their congress, to chants of Death to America.

Pakistan. Although it is an authoritarian Military dictatorship, is a country run by radicals. Material support of terrorism is common place here whether it is in Kashmir, domestic were churches are bombed, or through support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Pushtun regions.

This is no longer a coincidence. It's out there in black and white, there is a clash of civilizations. I would like to believe that it is only by radicals, but the people of Islam aren't giving me much to work with as far as hope goes.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Mojo_PeiPei

In it's first 400 years cared little for the outside world? The Battle of Tours would tend to prove that statement completely wrong.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Rekna

I love how your examples of the worst cases of islam involve a couple of our greatest allies.

Let's just put all the muslims in concentration camps. Let's actually outlaw Islam and attack all the countries in the world until Islam is dead.

You obviously have made your decision on Islam based on a vocal minority.

Mojo_PeiPei

First off, the examples aren't worst case, they are common place. And I'm the first to admit that the US is definitly in bed with the wrong people.

And I have made my decision, I don't believe it to be based on the vocal minority. The silent majority hasn't given me anything to work with, and as the saying goes, all evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Zeld2.0

Slaves have existed in human society for thousands of years, long before even Islam was founded. Genocide has been a part of society for a long time as well. Remember Christians persecuted by Romans? Muslims have ruled over North Africa for over 1400 years and this genocide is new in that scope.
Good to see the U.S. supports them though. But the generalizations are funny - leave Minnesota and go visit Saudi Arabia please. Or take some courses in history on that area and its people - oh and good job continuing the use of the term Islamofacism. Fascinating how one poster can influence us with a made-up term and never post again for nearly a year and its still in use.

Won't disagree here - they've been a long problem. But part of their problem is the people who put those religious extremists in power was because they led the fight against the Shah of Iran - a western leader. What was their cry? Kick the foreigners out. One thing leads to another..

Terrorist or guerillas? The fighting over Kashmir has long occured after the British left their colonies there. It has long been a hotly debated territory - a nation that doens't use its military officially to fight may defenitely fund freedom fighters.

Did you agree with the U.S. funding weapons / sending aid to anti-communist forces during the Cold War? If yes then you can see what Pakistan is doing - sending forces to aid people fighting their enemy without officially getting involved. How this has to do with Muslims is beyond me when India has been involved there as well.

The same could be said by Muslims on Christians - indeed, if you flip it backwards, it would be "I would like to believe that it is only by radicals, but the people of Christianity aren't giving me much to work with as far as hope goes" Hell even people can say that today who aren't Muslim and are Christian themselves and don't agree with their thoughts.

What has the average white Christian in America done to fix other people's views? Probably not much. The same can be said of our view of the of the average Muslim

Zeld2.0

Wrong.

The Battle of Tours stopped the Muslim invasion of Europe, that is true - that was their westernmost expansion.

However the notion that it was a large encirclment of Europe is false.

Indeed, once the the first Islamic Empire (the Umayyad Caliphate) reached its highest peak, it had little if any communication with the outside world.

The Muslims were the MINORITY in the first 500 years - indeed, Nestorian Christians, pagans, Zoroastrians were often the majority of people. Arab Muslims were the ruling elite though.

Look at texts of that time in the Middle East - scholars and scribes rarely if ever mentioned the outside world. The caliphs rarely had any dealings with the outside world or bothered with it.

And the fact that the article you quote (with no link I might add) talks about ending Christianity makes me laugh.

Muslims were the most tolerant of other religions of people. They NEVER forced conversion on anyone.

Their backlash against Christians came from the Mongol invasions but I wont go into that unless you want me to.

Mojo_PeiPei

They have existed, but that point is both ridiculous and moot. The current slave trade is sanctioned and allowed by the Sharian rulers. But I suppose since this genocide is new in scope, that over 2 million people have died as a result of this, that it is ok.

Why would I want to leave my home to go to a land where I would get thrown in Jail, with the possiblity of corperal punishment for being Christian?

As far as your ridiculous comments about Christians not giving anything to work with, what does that have to do with anything? I don't recall there being a "jihad" called out from Christianity calling for death to the East and all the non-believers. I don't recall there being acts of terrorism perpetuated by Christians, or in the name of christianity almost daily, can't say the samething for Islam.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Mojo_PeiPei

First I think you are drastically understating the scope and magnitude of the Battle. It is regarded by historians as one of the most important battles in the history of man. Furthermore the point I was making was that the battle took place within a hundred years of the inception of Islam.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Zeld2.0

I never put one word saying it was okay. But thanks for putting that into my mouth. But what do you say to other genocides in the rest of Africa? Rwanda? When the Niger river flowed red with decapitated bodies, Muslim rulers weren't the thing - hell, in many African nations, Islam isn't even the preferential religion.

Hm, and yet you claim to know much of Islam when you believe you simply being there will throw you in jail.

I suppose all our businessmen should get the fuck out right now.. oh wait, they're in jail.

Crusades anyone?

When Crusaders took Jerusalem, they killed Muslim inhabitants. When the Mongols took Baghdad, the Nestorian Christians and Shi'a Muslims were spared (due in part to many Mongols being Nestorian Christians and collaboratoin from Shi'a) while the Sunni population was massacred over a period of days.

Zeld2.0

That still doesn't prove that the Muslims set out with the notion of destroying Christianity - indeed that article gives absolutely no evidence for that and instead just puts it out as a fact. That is incorrect in the first place and there has been no evidence in text or scrolls of that period that say "hey, go kill them all." No, there isn't.

The Battle of Tours is a big thing for Western Christians of course but has been controversial - historians have never had a concensus in anyway of saying that it is significant. Indeed, its a hot topic and both Christian and Muslim scholars have taken both sides.

The battle took place within a hundred years of the inception of Islam - so what? Islam itself had to fight to survive. Muhammad and his followers at Medina had to face the armies of Mecca but eventually won out. His death started the Ridda wars where traitorous clans fought with Abu Bakr (the first caliph).

Indeed, there were MANY fitnas (civil wars) in the first 400 years of Islam - more fighting was done among foes, tribes, and territories in the Caliphate (Umayyad to Abassid) than attacks on Christian lands. The rewards in booty simply were greater than costs.

Mojo_PeiPei

I fail to see any bearing or context that military campaigns dating back a milenia have on our current situation. I like how you try to implement it though as a means of discrediting Christianity, which again has no bearing on this particular discussion.

Getting back to the thread, what do I say in regards to other African genocides? Well I think the original article did an adequate enough job to show the hypocrisy that is the UN. I personally would have no qualms going into Rwanda, or Somalia (oh another country greatly related to Sudan/Al Qaeda/OBL and Islamic terrorism) or Sudan and cracking some skulls.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Mojo_PeiPei

For the record I never wished to incinuate that Muslims at Tours had set out to destroy Christianity. But the fact remains had they won out, the world would be a drastically different place and neither myself nor you nor anyone here would exist.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Zeld2.0

Hmm why sudden abandon a position? You began it, I put the facts, and now you want to talk about something else? You began to bring in Islam into this, not me.

This is better suited for another thread anyways so that is that before thread is hijacked.

So long as you are willing to pay the price and possible problems in the future, be my guest. The U.S. hasn't tried to go involve itself in those issues when it has other problems...

Of course every country will clammor for the "good" position but implementing what they do, of course, isn't always there.

Zeld2.0

No, acutally I would, because my roots are traced to some province in China probably

And I dont think you are - im just stating what the article stated. That they were set out to destroy Christianity which I find absolutely ludicrous given that the evidence points otherwise.

As for the world being a different place.. history doesn't prevent alternatives unfortunately so I cannot predict what the world would be like and I dont think you can either. If another general rose up later and drove them out, we could live in the same world, we could still be different. Who knows what would've happened because it simply hasn't.

The line "A Moslem army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity..." makes me cringe which is what I'm pointing out. Sorry if it sounded like I was going after you, it was more the article and that you didn't provide a link to your source, which makes me question the motive of its writer.

archer2371

That's a map of Muslim Expansion up until 750. At the end of 661, they had taken the lands of Egypt, Syria, and Persia, controlling major trade routes to establish themselves as an economic power in the land. To say they weren't "interested" in the outside world is rather factually inaccurate. You can't control a major portion of the Silk Road and not be interested in the outside world. Also, the Muslims were continually obsessed with sacking Byzantium after the Crusades had ended and finally did conquer it sometime in the late Fifteenth Century (I can't remember the exact date). To say that the Muslims were just kinda sitting there when the bad ol' Christians who eat babies came along and tried to destroy their lives and the Muslims heroically made a stand and sent the Christians packing is again factually inaccurate. Yes, there were atrocities committed, but they were committed on BOTH sides, because the nature of warfare then was brutal and savage. They threw diseased cows at each other for cryin' out loud! The only thing that makes the Crusades such an anomaly is the fact that Pope Urban II usurped the power of the state when he called for the protection of the Holy Lands. The Byzantine Empire was seriously considering invading lands held by the Muslims in clode proximity to their own lands. The Merovingians were thinking the same thing (or was it the Carolingians at the time.... let's see here, Martel was in power at the Battle of Tours, so it was the Merovingians).

__________________
"This ain't no Ice Cream Social!"

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Rekna

Mojo if you are Christian you may want to pay more attention to what Jesus said in Matthew 5: 43-48