<< CINDY SHEEN ~ MAIN ~ MARKET FOR MISERY >>
DUPES DESCRIBED
Iraqis aren’t impressed by grandstanding CPT meddlers:
Iraq’s embassy to Canada lashed out at the Christian Peacemaker Teams Friday, calling them “phoney pacifists” and “dupes” after the antiwar group responded to the rescue of three of its kidnapped activists by condemning the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq.
The Iraqi embassy called CPT “willfully ignorant” and “outrageous,” and accused the Chicago-based group of being on the side of anti-democratic forces in Iraq.
“The Christian Peacemaker Teams practises the kind of politics that automatically nominate them as dupes for jihadism and fascism,” the embassy’s statement said.
A British-led special forces team on Thursday rescued three CPT members, who had been kidnapped in Baghdad nearly four months earlier.
LGF has tracked down a message posted by CPT in 1996:
We reject the use of force to save our lives should we be caught in the middle of a conflict situation or taken hostage.
Pre-emptive Stockholm Syndrome. Fascinating.
The Iraqi embassy called CPT “willfully ignorant” and “outrageous,” and accused the Chicago-based group of being on the side of anti-democratic forces in Iraq.
Now THAT’s what I’m talking about…glad to see they are coming out swinging on this.
Too bad it wont show up in the alphabet soup media
Posted by Sharon_Ferguson on 2006 03 26 at 02:38 AM • permalinkQuestion: Did they reject the use of force *during* or *after* their rescue? I mean, if they didn’t actually resist their rescuers and scream bloody murder about their desire to be put back into captivity and such, that’d surely make them hypocritical.
Posted by Aaron - Freewill on 2006 03 26 at 03:14 AM • permalinkGood for the Iraqi Embassy. Bravo.
So, next time take them at their word and leave them to die. But in that case, you aren’t allowed to use them as propagada. If you believe in your own martyrdom, do it quietly. Or ELSE, I might just think that you aren’t really sincere and that it isn’t just between you and your God.
Of course, these yahoos are on the side of the jihadists. Do you not see them sacrificing all over the place, martyrdom worn like tie-dyed baby-seal fur coat so every one will notice? You see, Islam isn’t the only mindset that allows for this sort of thing. Christianity itself was fought for in Roman arenas, with just the same kind of fanatics ready and willing to die for their god, and proving to the world the depth of their belief. Islam’s fanatics aren’t any different, it just sets up a little different criteria for what passes as martyrdom and why. You can argue the virtues of the criteria, but the result is the same. The Islamists are even more destructive of human life, however. The Christians, in the beginning anyway, only destroyed themselves in their bid for martyrdom. Later, of course, there were no end to the reasons why people had to die to appease god’s minions on this earth.
It was that sort of world that the men of the American Revolution recognized and fought to leave behind, the power-lusters who use religion as a justification to rule over everybody else. Believe whatever you will, you just don’t have the right to use it to initiate force against another individual, because that individual has the exact same right to believe what he will.
Of course, you have to have some concept of man as an individual entity first. This isn’t an idea that Islam accepts in any way, shape, or form. Your value as a human being is only as a cell within the body of Islam. That is why you must explicitly “surrender” your self, your individuality. The imams, mullahs, and ayatollahs will tell you just how to interpret the rules, of course. Plato’s philosophers.
Tyranny always ends up being some version of Plato’s Republic. Only the name of the beneficiaries to all that sacrifice changes.
We reject the use of force to save our lives…
No…
No, you quite demonstrably do not.
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2006 03 26 at 03:47 AM • permalinkChristianity itself was fought for in Roman arenas, with just the same kind of fanatics ready and willing to die for their god, and proving to the world the depth of their belief. Islam’s fanatics aren’t any different
I beg to disagree.
As far as I know Christians were not running to martyrdom. They were endeavoring to live a life honoring Jesus Christ. Roman’s were threatened by this and sent them to cruel deaths.
I don’t think the Christian experience is the same as Muslim’s trying to enforce sharia law on the world though terrorist acts .
#5,
Christianity itself was fought for in Roman arenas, with just the same kind of fanatics ready and willing to die for their god, and proving to the world the depth of their belief.
No. Not the same kind of fanatics at all. In those days Christians were put to death because they refused to worship the Emperor as though he were God. They did not do that because they wanted to prove to the world the depth of their belief. They did it because they were more afraid of God than of the Emperor. Smart people I reckon since God is eternal and the Emperors were not. Hope I never have to demonstrate similar bravery.
These CPT guys call themselves Christian but I’m pretty sure that the gods they worship are ‘Peace’ and ‘Human Rights’. These things are good but they’re not the ultimate good.
Notably, the Bible verses they use to justify their position don’t include Matthew 10:34. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Actually, that’s not accurate either.
Persecution of Christians was mainly limited to individual Emperors, such as Nero, or Diocletian, who routinely persecuted many other groups. Most historians recognise that the number of Christians persecuted by the Romans was greatly exaggerated, and the “Christians thrown to the lions” did not, in fact, happen as a matter of course.
A lot of the early martyrs, such as Stephen, most likely never existed as actual historical figures.
On the other hand, after the conversion of Rome, there was actual bonafide persecution of Christians outside the Empire, especially under the Zoroastrian Persian Empire of Khosrau, but this was political (they were accused of being Roman sympathisers) rather than over religious differences.
Posted by Quentin George on 2006 03 26 at 04:25 AM • permalinkI seem to have missed the groups of pacifists who have gone to Darfur to set up “peace camps”... I seem also to have missed news of the ones who have gone to Chechnya…
Perhaps I am just not rigorous enough in my following of news & current affairs,, because surely there are such camps? Surely?
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2006 03 26 at 04:33 AM • permalink# 11
A lot of the early martyrs, such as Stephen, most likely never existed as actual historical figures.
Yeah? Who’ve you been reading?
Apart from that:
For anyone else who thinks that anyone who calls himself a Christian really is a Christian have a look at this site.
Organization for Christian Polygamy
Good grief!
Come on, don’t be too hard on these do-gooders, or good-doers (as opposed to evildoers).
They’re just following Anne Coulter’s just after September 11 mission statement : (to paraphrase) “...invade their countries, steal their oil and convert them all to Christianity.”
You’re not trying to say Anne Coulter doesn’t know what she’s incoherently babbling about, are you?
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 26 at 05:43 AM • permalinkSorry to interrupt such an important thread with an O/T triviality but here in Oz we are on Duck Watch.
The Closing Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games is under way and the nation waits to see if Melbourne can repeat its idiocy and humiliation of the Opening Ceremony with a “poem” by cronic anti-semite cartoonist Leunig and his duck!
So far, several crappy bands and lots of bizarre-ly dressed ‘performers’ supposedly illustrating Melbourne’s icons (Christ, how hard can it be for Melbourne to celebrate Aussie Rules - yet we got ?ballet dancers? in footy colours doing - shit, I dunno.).
Utter crap.
Now, back to the Christianity debate, but we will interrupt as soon as we sight a Duck…..
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 26 at 06:02 AM • permalinkYeah? Who’ve you been reading?
Considering this “Stephen” appears nowhere except the Biblical account, and only in a highly implausible scene where he is stoned to death by Jews, I’d say it’s almost entirely certain he’s a pious invention of early Christians wishing to distance themselves from the Jewish wing of the Church.
Posted by Quentin George on 2006 03 26 at 06:20 AM • permalink#14 LLL - Dunno about Anne Coulter, but I’m flat out trying to follow you.
The CPT gang were neither do-gooders nor good-doers. They were, at the kindest possible interpretation, misguided. At the other end of the opinion spectrum they’d likely be described as cynical and opportunistic. Not to mention ungrateful.
Hell, let’s start a collection and buy them all a one-way ticket back to Baghdad. We can’t let them off the hook this easily - not what there’s so much good still waiting to be done.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 03 26 at 06:59 AM • permalinkFlash!
As the Commonwealth games were declared “closed”, after a pause, the cameras cut to the centre of the ground, there the “Duck Boy”, holding the Duck was lowered out of view. Thus completing a symbolic circle of Melbourne’s Commonwealth Games being ushered in and ushed back out again, by a Duck.
Melbourne, you will always be remembered, around the world, as the city that chose to symbolise itself by a Duck - but not just any Duck, but the creation of one of the most notorious anti-semites in the country.
Now, back to regular programming (unless they do the decent thing and barbeque the Duck as part of the ceremony)...
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 26 at 07:00 AM • permalinkI won’t get into a scripture quoting contest here. It little matters whether you go with the Jesus coming with a sword verses, or the turn the other cheek and love your enemy verses. The point the founders understood is that no one has the right to impose whatever beliefs they hold by the use of force. It’s the force bit that is important here. The founders knew that the sectarian battles would end with a mound of corpses on all sides. They knew their history and they’d seen it for themselves. They figured that if you couldn’t persuade a rational adult human being of your ideas, then more’s the pity for you, but you weren’t to then turn to the use of force to attempt to cram your ideas down the throat of another. They recognized that it is impossible to cram ideas down throats. Ideas must be accepted or not by every adult individual according to his own consciousness, which by the use of his reason, he is perfectly able to decide himself. They had a lot more respect for man than we do today.
As for St. Stephen, it doesn’t matter if he was real or not. Arguing about it is like arguing about whether there was an historical Jesus. If it wasn’t him, it was someone like him. Better questions are, rather, what is the purpose of the story, how has it been interpreted, and how has it been used in the history of Christianity? In other words, what did anyone do because of the way they interpreted that story? You could spend the next 2000 years debating whether there was a man named Stephen who lived in the first century of the common era, was the brother of Jesus of Nazareth, etc. Unless we find some unassailable piece of evidence, we will never know. You may as well spend your time playing tic-tac-toe.
It’s the ideas that matter.
I’m wondering who had the idiocy to bring in Dame Edna on the big screen who talked thru a lousy song ending in
“Melbourne is the Envy of the World”
Do we see London or Paris or Munich bragging about being the envy of the world
Has dame Edna lost touch so completely with Australia that she thinks all Australian suffer from such inferiority complexes so she has to write crap like that? I find that sort of thing disgusting coming from expats.
Bring back the lousy duck!I smell troll droppings.
Has the scent of L cubed.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 03 26 at 07:44 AM • permalinkCould have been plastic, RainDog, could have been. Was certainly inanimate as it was lowered out of view.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 26 at 07:49 AM • permalink#5 Saltydog. So are saying that the Christians of the Roman period deliberately threw themselves into the arena to be eaten by lions? That in Jihadist fashion, boldly charged the Gladiators, unarmed and naked, in order to sacrifice themselves to God? Nothing could be further from the truth. They were thrown in there, kicking and screaming. They were the victims of a dual method of combining genocide and perverse lust of gruesome entertainment.
“We reject the use of force to save our lives should we be caught in the middle of a conflict situation or taken hostage. “
Easy fix. fly them back and hand them over along with an apology for preventing them having their heads hacked off.
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 03 26 at 08:43 AM • permalink#28, if they go to Iraq convinced they can do a solid job of converting in the midst of a warzone, then they’re obviously mad.
And if not subscribing to the warped loopy-conservatism of Anne Coulter makes me a troll, then I’ll be under my bridge.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 26 at 09:31 AM • permalink#27, TexasBob: No, of course I didn’t mean all Christians. I said they had their fanatics, and so they did (some of which were quite famous). Neither did I say that every Muslim is a Jihadist.
Christianity does have a violent history. It is a mistake to think that everything has always been hunky-dory within Christianity’s borders because history says otherwise.
The Founding Fathers had seen bloody wars fought over religion. They saw that when those who fled to the new world from religious persecution were in charge, they, in their turn, persecuted those among them who thought differently. The religious wars in Europe from the time of the Protestant Reformation were enough to teach them the lesson about the dangers of mixing politics and religion. There would be no “divine right” to rule among the Americans. And the only way that people could live in freedom and believe whatever they will, was - and is - for everyone to have exactly the same rights before the law. You take care of your business and I’ll take care of mine. As long as you don’t try to force me, I will not use force on you. If I don’t like what you say, well it’s no skin off my nose what you believe, as long as you don’t try to force me. And vice versa.
Now, just look at the carnage when one bunch of folks decide that what you or I think doesn’t amount to a hill of beans because they have a book that says otherwise. You go along with that or they will cut off your head.
Completely different ideas. The Founding Fathers used ideas that further life, and the enjoyment of life, on this earth. These are the two sides in this war. I’ll choose the side with the ideas that recognize that I am an individual human being with rights that belong to me, not to some group.
There are many on our side who are having some trouble remembering some of the fundamentals, and they aren’t all on the left. We’ve attempted to mix collectivism with individualism and you can see that it is a mess. One might even call it a quagmire.
Now, I’m very tired and I’m sure I’m rambling. I won’t be editing this; so sorry.
LLL, oddly enough, Ann Coulter is not the poster child of the VRWC. If there is one in the first place. It’s like saying Maureen Dowd is the poster child for the DNC; MoDo may be a leftie loonie, but she is independent.
Your strawman that Coulter is some sort of spokeswoman, instead of an opinionated columnist, is trollish in that you are trying to stir crap up.
Especially since this thread is about the “Christian” “Peacemaker” Teams getting slammed by the Iraqi government. And justly so. The idiots in the CPT are self-centered and irresponsible.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 26 at 10:47 AM • permalinkThe comments section appears to be degenerating badly.
Moving on, LeftieLatteLover’s notion that Ann Coulter is some sort of right-wing spokesman is laughable. The circumstances surrounding the passage he cited demonstrate just the opposite.
The quote, “invade their countries, steal their oil and convert them all to Christianity,” appeared in Coulter’s National Review Online column immediately after the attacks of 9/11 in which she lost her best friend. NRO apologized and she was either fired or voluntarily left, depending on whether you believe then-editor Jonah Goldberg or Coulter. The online version was not then rigorously edited, as is the dead-tree version. For the last half-century National Review has been the arbiter of what is, and is not, mainstream conservatism in the U.S., so given the circumstances of her exit it is safe to assert the view she expressed is not mainstream right-wing opinion in the U.S.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 03 26 at 12:33 PM • permalinkTexas Bob, stop insulting the noble manatees. I’m sure they have always spoken highly of you.
I’m with Kathy Shaidle on the CPT. Give them back! Fly those silly poons right back to where they were picked up. And ignore them from that point on.
About this duck thing: So the organizers did drop the brown acid, is that what you’re all saying?
Better questions are, rather, what is the purpose of the story, how has it been interpreted, and how has it been used in the history of Christianity?
Stephen’s appearance has two purposes:
1) To introduce the character of St Paul into Acts, and establish that Paul was once a Christian persecutor
2) To give hope to Christians in the time of Nero that, like them, earlier Christians suffered persecution and did not give up their faith.I’m just correcting the misunderstanding that the Romans persecuted Christian because “they wouldn’t worship Caesar”...that’s rubbish, since it was never a requirement, and monotheists were generally left alone.
Both Jews and Christians WERE targetted - but it was for political reasons (ie, the Jewish revolts, or when Emperor’s scapegoated Christians for disasters)
Posted by Quentin George on 2006 03 26 at 04:26 PM • permalink#18,23,28,30,34,39:The striking characteristic of leftoids, when they cannot defend the actions of Muslim savages and their fellow travelers, like the CPT, is to change the subject, thereby, ending all discussion of a matter that makes them uncomfortable. Here is an example from the above Anne Coulter doesn’t know what she’s incoherently babbling about What has that to do with the crimes of the CPT? I don’t know if Coulter indulged in incoherent babbling, but I do know the author of this gem doesn’t know the difference between incoherent babbling and reasoned argument based on evidence. To prove my point, here is his/her view on JillHad There was no mention on the new [sic] tonight of the Sydney woman preparing for acts of terorism, just your plain old run of the mill surburban [sic] bombing, so she obviously can’t be Muslim, or of ‘Middle Eastern Appearance’.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover [sick]on 2006 03 25 at 04:05 AM
I thought he must be joking, but when I made reference to the JillHad post and told him he was wrong, his response showed that he had not been kidding: Yeah, Stats, what would the cops know about it? Obviously you have much better sources than they do.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 26 at 07:23 AM
Now here’s a troll who cannot admit a mistake even when the facts are before his/her eyes. Here’s a troll who tells us that there is a world wide movement by teeneagers never to fight another war (Jihad teens included, I suppose) and that they will (with his/her help, no doubt) prevail. Here’s a troll who can call the Anti-Christ minions of the CPT “do gooders”. I must say, Texas Bob, has hit the nail on the head in #28.The news I heard on the radio said that the CPT opposed the occupation of Iraq but were looking forward to returning to their own countries and living peacefully.
Do they think they can have it both ways?
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 26 at 05:29 PM • permalink#44 There is no occupation of Iraq. The elected representatives of Iraq have insisted that the Coalition remain in Iraq for the time being until a permanent government is formed. The CPT as part of the leftist_Islamist propoganda, call the liberators of Iraq “occupiers”. The CPT peacewreckers now return to their countries to live peacefully cursing the Iraquis and fervently praying to their Islamic idols that the Iraquis not live peacefully. If the CPT had a Christian bone in its grotesque body they would begin to organize fund raisers to provide Iraquis with the resources their idiocy has cost Iraq.
I am always puzzled that incredibly stupid and brave “sportspersons” who decide to tour the world’s oceans in enamel bathtubs and praise their saviers are presented with hefty bills by the rescuing authorities.
And yet incredibly stupid and cowardly “peace activists” who denigrate their rescuers are showered with adulations and no invoices of rescue.Stats,
In addition to changing the subject LLL lies about Coulter’s words. She proposed that we invade their countries, kill their leaders (like Saddam and his psychotic soawn I might point out)and convert them to Christianity. As you point out this did not meet with universal approval among we RWDBs. She did not propose stealing oil. The idea that the eeevil capitalists are making war to steal oil (something Saddam tried twice by the way, so it’s more of a socialist-fascist practice than a capitalist one) is something lefties are hung up on because they do not have enough intelligence to understand the world except in terms of the shallow cliches of childish Marxism.Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 03 26 at 07:53 PM • permalink#32
lakemba would be good :)
Not really. Let’s imagine some CPT fools got captured in Lakemba and were held hostage by the Islamic Youth Movement.
Sheik Hilaly would personally kick in their door, free him, thank the hostage-takers (by their first name) and demand the adoration of the Australian public (in Arabic).
And Fairfax would buy it…
Just an historical note: The Christian faith has a longer history in Iraq than it does in Rome. Assyria, as Northern Mespotamia was then known, was the first nation to accept Christianity in the Common Era.
St. Thomas the doubting apostle, Bortholemew and Thaddeus brought Christianity to Iraq in 33 A.D.
Incredibly succesful Imperialists early on in their 4000 year history, after 33 AD the Assyrians again set out to build an empire, not a military empire, but a religious empire founded on divine revelation and Christian brotherhood.
So successful was the Assyrian missionary enterprise, by the end of the twelfth century the Assyrian Church was larger than the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches combined, and it spanned the Asian continent, from Syria to Mongolia, Korea, China, Japan and the Philippines.
When Marco Polo visited China in the thirteenth century, he was astonished to find Assyrian priests in the Chinese royal court, and tens of thousands of Chinese Christians. The Assyrian missionaries had reached China in the sixth century. With only the bible, a cross, and a loaf of bread in hand, these messengers had walked thousands of miles along the old silk road to deliver the word of God.
So successful were the missionaries, when Genghis Khan swept through Asia, he brought with him an army over half of which belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East. So successful were the missionaries, the first Mongolian system of writing used the Assyrian alphabet.
Armed with the word of God, Assyrians once again transformed the face of the Middle East. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries they began a systematic translation of the Greek body of knowledge into Assyrian. At first they concentrated on the religious works but then quickly moved to science, philosophy and medicine. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and many others were translated into Assyrian, and from Assyrian into Arabic.
It is these Arabic translations which the Moors brought with them into Spain, and which the Spaniards translated into Latin and spread throughout Europe, thus igniting the European renaissance.
So, when someone tells you we’d not have the Greek Philosophers, the Renaissance or Enlightenment were it not for thoughtful Arabs scholars, the them to pull the other one.
G-d, I despise epigones!
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 26 at 11:15 PM • permalinkOh, where I wrote
which the Spaniards translated into Latin
I should have specified
which Spanish Jews translated into Latin
Again, when someone tells you we’d not have the Greek Philosophers, the Renaissance or Enlightenment were it not for thoughtful Arabs scholars, tell them to pull the other one.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 27 at 03:38 PM • permalinkTexas Bob 36
Christianity’s corporate blood thirst ended 500 years ago, Islam is still swimming in it.
I’d put it at closer to 250, vice 500. The Forty Years War didn’t even start until the 1600s. Also iirc they were still burning witches well into the 1700s.
But the historical fact of the matter is that they DID clean up their act in a large way, and they DO provide an example that Islam needs to get busy and start living up to. So I think we agree.Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 28 at 02:35 PM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
Does this mean that the whole affair is now a do-over? I can hardly wait for CPT to send another team of middle-aged pacifists into Baghdad and have them wait on some street corner till kidnapped again.