Moderate Islamists work with Al Qaeda

[molly bloom]

His rational for this is that they are illiterate and leftist.

I'm certain that large numbers of U.S. citizens need to be saved from chore of voting because of their poor reading skills.

A long-awaited federal study finds that an estimated 32 million adults in the USA — about one in seven — are saddled with such low literacy skills that it would be tough for them to read anything more challenging than a children's picture book or to understand a medication's side effects listed on a pill bottle.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-08-adult-literacy_N.htm

http://www.nationalcommissiononadultliteracy.org/report.html

Perhaps Cuba could spare a few English teachers....

[Zevico]

You want to disallow the baby steps of democracy because of your fear that people aren't perfect yet. You'd be the one arguing against a democratic USA, saying that Americans aren't ready for democracy because so many of them aren't ready to give up slavery.

Don't be a child. I've explained my reasoning quite clearly. I don't think Islamist movements are democratic. I think they're happy to use elections as a means of securing power and marching through the institutions of government. The framers of the American constitution had no such aims. We have seen Islamist movements do this repeatedly. In Gaza, Hamas took power by force after gaining more power and legitimacy through elections. In Iran elections are used as a prop and are fixed on a repeated basis (even though the candidates are prescreened regardless by the Islamist elite); true power still lies with the Islamist elite and the Revolutionary Guard. In Sudan, the Islamist leaders of (now North) Sudan came to power and committed a genocide which every other Islamist movement flatly derided as a Zionist conspiracy and an illusion. In Egypt, the MB quite unapologetically assassinated a democratically elected Prime Minister, Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha, prior to the Free Officers' coup. Then after the coup they may have tried killing Nasser to boot. The MB didn't come from a vacuum. They have a history and an ideology that explains their actions. Why assassinate a democratically elected Prime Minister if you're a democrat? The very notion is a nonsense.

So you think they should have installed a dictatorship ... we know. Thankfully totalitarian cheerleaders like you weren't deciding things back then.

Again, you're acting like a child.

Because neo-cons definitely wouldn't have been involved in any sort of "remaking the world in their own image" attempts

Because a revolution obviously is not dissent!

By this logic every revolution is democratic.

We know it's irresistibly good, and over time leads to more and more tolerant societies.

Like Athens. Athenian democracy was irresistibly good and lead to more and more toleration. That's why the Athenian city-state is still with us here today. Inevitably!

Yet you want to continue to oppress them and not give them a chance to ever get started down that path.

Such adherents to democracy as exist among the Egyptian exist because the Mubarak regime tolerated them. Given time the MB will not extend its opponents that courtesy.

They are obviously democratic movements. Democratic movements are when people decide to revolt (peacefully or not) and install a democratic form of government. Just because they might vote in someone you don't like doesn't make them not democratic.

Elect a tyrannyical movement that does away with democracy and you get a tyranny.

Because heaven knows Egypt and Libya are such a huge threat to us ...

Lockerbie bombings.
World Trade Centre bombings. FYI: Egypt wants you to release one of the co-conspirators. Also, Morsi denies that Muslims did 9/11 and his movement calls for violent resistance against America.

[Aeson]

I've explained my reasoning quite clearly.

Yes, you think that they aren't ready for democracy because you are afraid they will elect the wrong people and end up with a type of totalitarian government. To stop this from happening, you want to disallow them to elect anyone and instead install a totalitarian type of government.

You've been very clear in that regard.

I don't think Islamist movements are democratic.

Just because Islamists participate in democratic movements doesn't mean they're Islamist movements. Unless you're trying to say all Muslims are Islamists?

I think they're happy to use elections as a means of securing power and marching through the institutions of government.

OMG! Whatever shall we do? People will use elections to get into positions of power! OMG OMG OMG! We need a dictator for every democracy on earth, NOW!

[quote]In Gaza, Hamas took power by force after gaining more power and legitimacy through elections.

In Iran elections are used as a prop and are fixed on a repeated basis (even though the candidates are prescreened regardless by the Islamist elite); true power still lies with the Islamist elite and the Revolutionary Guard.

If only we could go back in time and help overthrow their democracy and support a dictator ... surely it would have stopped this from happening! Oh wait, we did help overthrow their democracy and supported a dictator over them. So there's the outcome of your stupidity ... Oppress people long enough and they'll react violently, and probably end up with some form of government that doesn't like you.

The MB didn't come from a vacuum.

Yah. I mean they came to power by ... participating in a revolution against a dictator you supported. Again, how could this "support a dictator to oppress people" ever have any drawbacks?

They have a history and an ideology that explains their actions. Why assassinate a democratically elected Prime Minister if you're a democrat? The very notion is a nonsense.

You're now arguing that when Lincoln was assassinated we should have had a dictator instead of continuing as a democracy.

Not everyone believes in democracy of course. You and those who try to assassinate democratically elected leaders are of evidence of that.

By this logic every revolution is democratic.

You said they don't brook dissent. The very nature of the movements (revolution) is dissent. I was pointing out the absurdity of saying a revolution doesn't brook dissent. Your equation of dissent to democracy is moronic.

Like Athens. Athenian democracy was irresistibly good and lead to more and more toleration. That's why the Athenian city-state is still with us here today. Inevitably!

Athens was more tolerant than most of their period's peers. Still nowhere near a modern democracy of course. What would have happened with Athenian democracy on it's own we can't say, as the Romans kinda ensured they wouldn't have a chance to continue down their own path.

Kinda like how you want to ensure that democracy doesn't get a chance in Muslim nations.

Such adherents to democracy as exist among the Egyptian exist because the Mubarak regime tolerated them. Given time the MB will not extend its opponents that courtesy.

We will see. Mubarak obviously wasn't tolerant enough. The Egyptian people have shown they want a more democratic form of government. Perhaps that movement will fail to achieve it's goals, perhaps other forces will win out. You want to prevent it from ever happening for fear that it won't work.

I'm willing to give fledgling democracies a bit of leeway in hopes of a better future. You want dictators everywhere.

Elect a tyrannyical movement that does away with democracy and you get a tyranny.

Better to have a chance than no chance. You want to dictate to hundreds of millions of people. You're the tyrant wannabe. Maybe some movement that ascribes to a similar vein of thought as your's will subvert/overthrow their democracy, or we'll do it ourselves (the west), and they'll end up under a tyrant. Hopefully not.

Lockerbie bombings.

Thanks Zev and Gaddafi for providing this great example of why supporting dictators doesn't make us safe.

World Trade Centre bombings.

Ok. So we need a dictator for Kuwait (Saddam tried, bless his heart), England, Egypt (wait, Mubarak didn't help?), Germany, US, Iraq (Saddam didn't do his job!), Israel, and Afghanistan. Because someone(s) from those countries did a bad thing. Dictatorship is the only way to stop people from criminal acts!

FYI: Egypt wants you to release one of the co-conspirators. Also, Morsi denies that Muslims did 9/11 and his movement calls for violent resistance against America.

And you are calling for a dictator to oppress their people. Doesn't mean Australia should have a dictator just because you said something stupid and want to do evil things to all Muslims.

[Zevico]

Egypt is in a state of proxy war with the United States. It will happily aid your enemies if and when the opportunity arises, as they already have, and kill your citizens so that their regime can achieve domestic support. This is the grim reality of the Middle East: killing Westerners is a popularity competition there. The more you kill, the more popular you are among folks like Morsi, who endorsed the protests against the US embassy; whose movement calls for violence against the US; and which has endorsed suicide attacks against US troops in the Middle East in the past. Put simply, there is no reason for the US to provide aid or comfort to its enemies. This is the policy the Obama Administration has proposed and carried into effect. The end result was that, most recently, the MB simply spit in the US' face by calling for the release of the a conspirator in the 1st WTC bombings and endorsing violent Egyptian protests at the US embassy. That was what the US got for its support. What has the Administration done in response? Nothing. Aid to continue as usual, MB hostility notwithstanding. It is a terrible, terrible form of naivete to support the MB.

[kentonio]

Also, Morsi denies that Muslims did 9/11 and his movement calls for violent resistance against America.

Oh gosh, you mean he thinks the same as the 49% of NYC residents would were polled as believing 9/11 was an inside job?

Incidentally just to be clear, I think they are being dumb, but it's a bit rich to hold popular American opinions against him.

[DinoDoc]

Popular American opinions?

[molly bloom]

[

Because heaven knows Egypt and Libya are such a huge threat to us ...

Lockerbie bombings.

World Trade Centre bombings. FYI: Egypt wants you to release one of the co-conspirators. Also, Morsi denies that Muslims did 9/11 and his movement calls for violent resistance against America.

'Lockerbie bombings'- plural ? As far as I know there was one explosive device on the aeroplane parts of which came down on Lockerbie. As to who actually carried out the bombings, well perhaps when Syria's current dictatorial regime is consigned to the dustbin of history, the true story of Lockerbie and the state or states behind the explosives on board the jet might be known.

After all, Syria had been behind one failed attempt at the same thing:

A terrorist jailed for 45 years for trying to blow up an Israeli plane could be freed to live in the UK if he succeeds in a High Court challenge to his continued detention.

Nezar Hindawi was jailed at the Old Bailey in 1986 after he was convicted of attempting to blow up an Israel-bound El Al airliner, carrying almost 400 people

Hindawi was jailed after planting a bomb in his pregnant fiancée’s hand-luggage as she was about to board the Tel Aviv-bound plane at London’s Heathrow Airport.

The case resulted in the UK breaking off diplomatic relations with Syria.

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/72929/el-al-bomber%E2%80%99-nezar-hindawi-could-go-free

I think this lot are much more of a threat:

..... visitors whose delegation is led by five professors from the Imam Mohammed Ibn-Saud Islamic University, a seminary for the training of clerics in Wahhabism. Familiarly known as the "terrorist factory," this institution was the alma mater of three of the 9/11 suicide hijackers. Abd al-Aziz Abd al-Rahman Al-Omari (who was on the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center) met and befriended several bin Ladenite clerics while studying at the Ibn-Saud campus in the city of Qaseem. Ahmed Abdullah Al-Nami (who was on the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania) studied at the university's branch in the city of Abha. And Mohned Mohamed al-Shehri (who was on the plane that struck the South Tower) was recruited, according to Saudi dissident sources, to the bin Laden network directly from the university.

Not only that, but the same seminary ran the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America (IIASA) as an extension campus in Fairfax, Virginia, under the supervision of the Department of Religious Affairs of the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Early this year, the State Department expelled 24 Saudis associated with this network for abusing their diplomatic passports to interfere with American religious life.

The most obvious window into the theology taught at Ibn-Saud Islamic University is the Wahhabi Koran, an edition of the Islamic scripture, with commentary, printed in every major European, Asian, and African language in paperback editions that are distributed free or at low cost throughout the world (and are available on the web at www.kuran.gen.tr/html/english3). The fifteenth revised edition of this work was published as The Noble Qur'ân in the English Language by Darussalam Publishers and Distributors in Riyadh in 1996. The translators are Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, both affiliated with another extremist institution, the Islamic University of Medina, two of whose faculty members are also among the educators being hosted by the State Department.

The Wahhabi Koran is notable in that, while Muslims believe that their sacred text was dictated by God and cannot be altered, the Saudi English version adds to the original so as to change its sense in a radical direction. For example, the opening chapter, or surah, is known as Fatiha, and is recited in Muslim daily prayer and (among non-Wahhabis) as a memorial to the dead. The four final lines of Fatiha read, in a normal rendition of the Arabic original (such as this translation by N.J. Dawood, published by Penguin Books): Guide us to the straight path, / The path of those whom You have favored, / Not of those who have incurred Your wrath, / Nor of those who have gone astray.

The Wahhabi Koran renders these lines: Guide us to the Straight Way. / The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who have earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians). The Wahhabi Koran prints this translation alongside the Arabic text, which contains no reference to either Jews or Christians.

http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1091/rewriting-quran

[kentonio]

Popular American opinions?

42% of Americans said there was a cover up.

Meanwhile..

The results of the 2007 August poll indicate that 51% of Americans want Congress to probe Bush/Cheney regarding the 9/11 attacks and over 30% of those polled seek immediate impeachment. While only 32% seek immediate Bush and/or Cheney impeachment based on their personal knowledge, many citizens appear eager for clear exposure of the facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion...#United_States

Again, I don't believe in that ****, but it doesnt seem like a stretch to call it a 'popular American opinion'.

[DinoDoc]

An Obama ally was run out of his position at the White House for being a Truther.

[kentonio]

As he should have been.

[Aeson]

Egypt is in a state of proxy war with the United States. It will happily aid your enemies if and when the opportunity arises, as they already have, and kill your citizens so that their regime can achieve domestic support. This is the grim reality of the Middle East: killing Westerners is a popularity competition there. The more you kill, the more popular you are among folks like Morsi, who endorsed the protests against the US embassy; whose movement calls for violence against the US; and which has endorsed suicide attacks against US troops in the Middle East in the past. Put simply, there is no reason for the US to provide aid or comfort to its enemies. This is the policy the Obama Administration has proposed and carried into effect. The end result was that, most recently, the MB simply spit in the US' face by calling for the release of the a conspirator in the 1st WTC bombings and endorsing violent Egyptian protests at the US embassy. That was what the US got for its support. What has the Administration done in response? Nothing. Aid to continue as usual, MB hostility notwithstanding. It is a terrible, terrible form of naivete to support the MB.

You're back to confusing actors and movements. Egypt is in a state of proxy war with us? That's just ludicrous. You might as well say the US in is a state of proxy war with the US because some guy parked a truck full of fertilizer outside a government building.

You mock the 9/11 conspiracy theory (rightly so) and then spout your own that are even more fanciful. You don't even stick to trying to bizarrely attribute the action of individuals to entire nations, but even go so far as to attribute future actions to them as well.

To prevent your delusions from coming true, you want brutal dictators to keep down hundreds of millions of people. A member of a group or nation does something you don't like (or you predict they will), so you think the proper response is to oppress all members of the nation. It's sick.

I'll take protests against our embassies over your type of evil any day. Especially considering your type of evil (though generally a much more mundane version than the wacko extreme you take it to ... ) is largely why we face the dislike from others that scares you so.

[kentonio]

Wish I had a thanks left for that post.

[Zevico]

Morsi is the head of state. The Egyptian state is currently engaged in a proxy war with the United States. You seem very confused about the notion that enemies must be fought and defeated. Better to prop them up with money, I suppose.

[kentonio]

Egypt is not in a proxy war with the US you silly little man.

[Aeson]

Morsi is the head of state.

And he's done nothing to warrant calling their relation to us a "proxy war". He and Obama have make a couple snarky comments to each other.

You're confusing "proxy war" with "foreign national involved in some criminal act". You're further delusional because the acts you attribute to the nations in question would have been acts committed under the very totalitarian regimes you prefer!

Better to prop them up with money, I suppose.

Yes, it would be better than overthrowing a democracy to gain another Iran, or propping up a dictator to get another Iraq. Not good, but better than the absolute insanity you are calling for.

My preferred support for democratic movements (and hard working, honest people in general) would be much different than what we currently do, or have ever done. But I'd certainly settle for doing nothing, rather than supporting dictators and actively undermining democracy.