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BAD POLL FOR BINNY
The Washington Post reports:
Osama bin Laden’s standing has dropped significantly in some pivotal Muslim countries, while support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence has “declined dramatically,” according to a new survey released yesterday.
Read the whole piece, which features a quote from Middle East specialist Richard Norton: “Muslims, like non-Muslims, are plugged into the world ... It is one thing to be caught up in the supposed glamour of attacking the superpower or global bully, but it is quite another to have to pay the consequences economically, politically—not to mention personally. This is what has happened in places like Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey, where many people now see extremist Islam as a threat to their lives, not a fantasy game of kick Uncle Sam.”
(Via Insta)
Between the Evil Infidel Point System and falling ratings, the terrorists’ options are becoming limited.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 07 15 at 03:48 AM • permalinkBREAKING NEWS: AN AUSTRALIAN BOMBING VICTIM IN LONDON JUST DIED
Posted by Young and Free on 2005 07 15 at 03:56 AM • permalinkLet’s not get excited. The piece puts the bad news at the end: “The Muslims surveyed had mixed views on Christians, and anti-Jewish sentiment was “endemic”.
Without a change in these attitude throught the Muslim world, and a large increase in tolerance, the blood feud will continue.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 07 15 at 04:35 AM • permalink... “but it is quite another to have to pay the consequences economically, politically—not to mention personally.”
Recognition of the consequences of actions carried out by the rabid death cult should be chilling for anyone with half a brain.
It is this which sorts the nation builders from the goat fanciers (to put it politely)....where many people now see extremist Islam as a threat to their lives, not a fantasy game of kick Uncle Sam.
Beautiful. Churchill recognised that the war must be taken to the German population in order to make them feel the true cost of their aggression.
The Doolittle raid was designed for the same effect.
But, but .... I thought the Iraq war was going to super-charge support for OBL and his band of psycho-killer losers. I mean, this is what all the smart folks at CIA and the NYT and other outfits that haven’t called anything right in living memory have been warning us. It couldn’t be that, say, like all other human beings, Muslims don’t jump on the bandwagon of a losing cause, could it? Didn’t some twit from Saudi once write something about people following the strong horse? Horrors. Could it be that taking the offense and crushing your enemies actually discourages your enemies’ friends? Imagine.
Let’s not get excited. The piece puts the bad news at the end: “The Muslims surveyed had mixed views on Christians, and anti-Jewish sentiment was “endemic”.
No, let’s get excited, seriously. It took half a millenium to move Christianity from being the totalitarian terror in the world to being a leading opponent of same (bless you JP-II, next time keep the priests away from the altar boys). In a nuclear age we’re gonna have to move Islam a lot faster and this is enormously heartening news that we’re on the right track. The moderation of Islamic feeling is starting, which is why we need to turn up the heat on the hate preachers (and unfortunately Islam, like certain Baptist sects with no central authority, tends to reward the loudest asshole, so we need to provide alternative incentives for nice friendly imams and stern disincentives for preachers who’ve already lost body parts in the fight).
...Christianity from being the totalitarian terror in the world…
I must’ve missed that chapter in my history lessons.
If it’s the Spanish Inquisition to which you’re referring, or the excesses of some Spanish missionaries in the New World, you are missing the fact that Spaniards learned about forced conversions and slaughtering infidels from ... Muslims. Not from Christ.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2005 07 15 at 09:11 AM • permalinkRead the comments on this
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2005/07/sassy_organisat.html#comments
The AGE has reprinted an article from the Grauniad. The article was written by an islamic terrorist supporter.
Hey. as long as Muslims are plugged…
If the Jihadist interpretation of Islam is supposed to be held by a tiny minority of the world’s muslims these numbers are still disturbingly high
Yes, but our ammo budget just went way down…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 15 at 10:07 AM • permalinkI must’ve missed that chapter in my history lessons. If it’s the Spanish Inquisition to which you’re referring, or the excesses of some Spanish missionaries in the New World, you are missing the fact that Spaniards learned about forced conversions and slaughtering infidels from ... Muslims. Not from Christ.
Oh dear. Yes, because the state of man in nature until Islam was one of peace and tranquility, no doubt.
There is plenty in all of human history to shame any people, Christians as much as any other; the business of raising us to the passable level of civilization some of enjoy today has been a long and hard one. Bragging that Christianity is by definition more humane than Islam requires the sort of historical ignorance that… well, I digress. The important difference is that the Christian West got started on the job of cleaning up its act about 4-500 years ago. Islam, it appears, is just now getting started. That’s the relevant point, not cheerleading for “our” side.
It cheers me to know there are so many of us who understand this war
Posted by Pogue Mahone on 2005 07 15 at 11:19 AM • permalinkmurph-
I musta missed a history lesson. I’m familiar with the Doolittle raids on Toyko, but am unaware of his activity over Germany. Enlighten me, please. Thanks.
Posted by nofixedabode on 2005 07 15 at 11:26 AM • permalinkmurph- disregard. Sorry. I misread your point. I can only plead that it is 11 am here, and I am either just getting up or just going to bed… I forget which.
Posted by nofixedabode on 2005 07 15 at 11:32 AM • permalinkMike G:
There is plenty in all of human history to shame any people, Christians as much as any other….
That all sounds very nice and equivocal, but it fails to distinguish between human nature—which is unchanging—and the power of ideas to modulate it.
Mohammed was a warrior; Christ, a peaceful man, as were his disciples once they understood him. The Koran dictates killing nonbelievers; the New Testament, talking to and living peaceably among them.
Of course, what fallible humans do with their instructions is often abominable. But that’s no indictment of the instructions.
That’s the relevant point, not cheerleading for “our” side.
It isn’t “cheerleading” when an umpire calls a forfeit.
I think you’re assuming I’m a Christian.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2005 07 15 at 12:14 PM • permalinkThat all sounds very nice and equivocal, but it fails to distinguish between human nature—which is unchanging—and the power of ideas to modulate it.
No, but the rest of my post sure as hell is EXACTLY about that, isn’t it?
Christ was a peacemaker, sure, in the edited version we got following Masada. History suggests he was a bit more of a provocateur and his buddy Judas the Sicarii (knife dude) only moreso. But okay, fine, Muhammad was a bigger badass, and Buddha a bigger peacemaker for that matter.
I am, as you seem unable to grasp, uninterested in the events and personages of 2000 years ago at the moment. The point, which you cannot bear to accept, is that Western Christendom was a perfectly beastly thing in many of its manifestations, soaked in blood and an enemy of human progress. But progress was made—sometimes by Christians, probably more often by their freethinking opponents—and the West has brought itself out of the medieval darkness in which it once operated. It would be helpful to be able to look at that process, honestly and without feeling you have to softsoap your side’s reputation, in order to understand what it will take to drag the Islamic world out of that bloody-minded cesspit and into something resembling civilized modernity.
That is all. And that is why Jesus his self and what you think he was is irrelevant, as irrelevant as Julius Caesar to the events of the risorgimento.
Support for psychotic terrorist mass murder of innocent civilians was down to just over 50% in some of those countries too.
Posted by IcallMasICM on 2005 07 15 at 12:32 PM • permalinkMike G (#23).
Exceptionally well put.
This is not a footy game where one side is better than the other.
These fanatics will have to realise that there is a real price to pay for their actions in the here and now, and that the mystical voices from the past are irrelevant.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 07 15 at 02:27 PM • permalink“These fanatics will have to realise that there is a real price to pay for their actions in the here and now, and that the mystical voices from the past are irrelevant.”
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
The world was a very different place at the time of the Protestant Reformation, and the more I’ve studied it, the less I’m inclined to think that it can be used as any kind of model for an Islamic Reformation… and the more critical the words of those long-dead prophets become.
The Protestant Reformation was started by one of the most religious men in Europe, not because the religion the Pope practiced was behind the times, but because it was too far ahead. Too corrupt, too worldly, and too far from the original words in the Holy Roman Bible. The Protestant Reformation was a return to the original intent of Jesus Christ, who by happy coincidence, was pretty much the model of liberalism, in the original spirit the US was built upon.
The fact that Jesus was a man of peace, and Mohammed a man of violence, is a critical difference in this context. All the evidence is that the Religion of “Peace” is already undergoing a Reformation, as the corrupt and worldly House of Saud is being challenged by one of Islam’s most religious men, in an effort to return Islam to its world-dominating, anything-goes-in-Dar-al-Haarb roots.
Osama bin Laden is the Martin Luther of Islam. Our interest lies not in reforming Islam, so much as stopping his reform of it.
Posted by Tatterdemalian on 2005 07 15 at 04:54 PM • permalink“Osama bin Laden’s standing has dropped significantly in some pivotal Muslim countries”
Boy, it sure is a good thing the international community was able to stop Bushitler the Chimp Emperor’s planned invasion of Iraq, because otherwise THE ARAB STREET (tm) would have united against the US and all that hard-earned progress would have gone out the window.
On a related note, how do you say Yo’ My Bitch Now, Abdullah in Spanish?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 15 at 08:18 PM • permalink#13.Mike G.If it took Christianity half a millenium to move from totalitarian terror to the opponent of terror what’s your best estimate for a similar transformation to occur with your mates? Even allowing for their undeniable intelluctual and cultural superiority can you see them,at the current rate of progress,making it in less than 100 years? If not,do you suggest we put up with more of their shit for that long or maybe just nuke ‘em now.
Not sure who my mates are (being Muslim is hardly the only alternative to being Christian; try agnostic) but I don’t worry too much about precise parallels to the Protestant Reformation because Islam isn’t at all structured like Catholicism was, either—question is how you secularize a society to lead it away from darkness and needless to say in the media age things move a lot faster. The reality is that enormous Islamic populations in many countries are already considerably Westernized, the problem is the ones that aren’t because of their own internal problems and nutjob preachers, not that it isn’t possible at all. The Islamic world—or at least parts of it—have been off the path that most of the rest of the world has been on; but soon there will even be middle eastern countries which belong in the same breath as Japan, South Korea, India. Imagine when “Made in Iraq” is a common sight at Wal-Mart. It can be done, and this survey is an enormously encouraging indication that it’s starting, at long last.
Gee Mike G, do you really think you being an ‘agnostic’ qualifies you to comment on matters of faith? Sorry if this sounds harsh but why dont you STFU?
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 07 16 at 03:14 AM • permalinkMike G - 2,000 years ago most organizations were beastly. Life was beastly -no social security,not much medical or dental knowledge,no anaesthetics,no world policemen,no tv media, no rights,no contact with extended family for those who were geographically isolated - no nothing in the way of modern comforts and safety nets.
The Christian church was and is responsible for many very bad actions but it wasn’t the only pebble on the beach.People didn’t live long and they had dreadful lives, including the well off.#34 - Yes, census statistics show the majority of Australians say they are Christians. However this is a self-attributed status and not reliable; many confuse being Xtian and mere spiritualty. Australians, I suspect, consider themselved Xtians if they believe in Christmas and the Easter Bunny. If Australian Xtianity is measured by actual observance, e.g., church attendance, I think you’ll find the percentage is very low - I’d guess 5%.
Some areas are thriving - pentacostalists, for example.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 07 16 at 04:19 AM • permalinkGee Mike G, do you really think you being an ‘agnostic’ qualifies you to comment on matters of faith?
Gee, Deo, do you really think being a non-Muslim qualifies you to comment on matters of Islam?
Sorry if this sounds harsh but why dont you STFU?
Given that his posts were sensible, accurate, and fair, I don’t think he should STFU.
Gee Mike G, do you really think you being an ‘agnostic’ qualifies you to comment on matters of faith? Sorry if this sounds harsh but why dont you STFU?
Gee, Deo Vindice, do you think not being a Stobie Pole qualifies you to be as dumb as one? Saints preserve us, I had enough Catholic schooling to qualify, it seems to me, but faith and begorrah, seems to me I was talking about HISTORY, not the finer points of Thomas a Kempis.
Crash—not sure why you think that wasn’t part of my point, or at the same time, irrelevant to my point which is focused on the last 500 years.
Dave S. I didnt comment on Islam. Mike G. Good one Knobjockey.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 07 17 at 02:31 AM • permalink
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I look forward to this. If Bin Laden stops his activity due to unpopularity the left in Australia can accuse him of being a poll-driven terrorist leader. Probably the most insulting thing they’ve ever called him.