ScottSA

It was the pro-Israeli community that came up with this knickname after Fisk's book "Pity the Nation" came out describing the 1980s invasion of Lebanon by Israel (Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister). Since Fisk was reporting from his home in Beirut throughout the war while anybody who agreed with the IDF's version of events was reporting from Jerusalem where their dispatches were heavily censored by Sharon's people, I'll take Fisk's version of events. The IDF was shovelling doo-doo big time in its press releases at the time and mounted a smear campaign against Fisk which went on for years after. Is "pro-Israeli community" code for "Jews"? You did notice that the last little donnybrook involved Reuters being fisked for fake reporting and faked pictures? Wasn't the "Pro-Israeli community", it was the pro-terrorist news organization. Anyway, the fiskings I've seen on Fisk himself involve a discussion of the facts, as opposed to innuendo about Jews.

Reported. I'll keep that in mind and report any slips by you in the future.

True, I wouldn't want to drag out any references to Medieval Christian behaviour - since they (unlike your example of the taking of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453) are hopelessy out of date. Hows about the slaughter of Bosnian Muslims? or European Jews? Fairly recent examples of mans inhumanity towards Man - and not perpretrated by Muslims. We are as much a bunch of pricks as they are. But that's not the point, is it? Collectivist Nazism killed Jews. Serbians killed Bosnian Muslims with approximately the same gusto that Bosnian Muslims killed Serbians. You may have noticed that "we" didn't jump up and down and cheer it on across the globe either. You may have noticed that Christians are not blowing up things in Islamic lands in the name of Christ.

It's simply a matter of degrees, really. So you don't want to actually stone gays or women who don't conform to your expectations to death: but I'm sure you'd like to see soem legal and social restrictions on them. It's not a testament to moderation as it is to the limits we've managed to put on nutty expressions of belief. No, its simply a matter of strawmanship. It's a common tactic among your compatriots on the left to take the most radical form of fundamentalist social conservatism and paint it as representative of the mainstream rightwing. It's a silly tactic, but certainly in keeping with the left, who has been enamored of reductionist bumper sticker slogans since Lenin first discovered their utility. Most of the rightwing are if anything social libertarians and economic individualists. Individualism is an interesting concept, juxtaposed as it is against collectivism. Collectivism defines the left perhaps better than any other concept, from the 'class' of Marx to the 'volk' of Hitler. It's not surprising that Islam is also based upon collectivism, viewing its adherents as the 'Ummah'. You see, just because someone doesn't think homosexuals and women need special priviledges in society, doesn't mean they "Hate" homosexuals or women. Many women and homosexuals feel that special protections and priviledges tend to hurt them more than help them. So really, your argument is pointless because your premise is faulty. If you want to frame issues out of all semblence to reality, go ahead, but don't expect to be taken seriously.

No wonder you're an intellectual lightweigtht. Hint: citing comedy central is not viewed as scholarly.

Yeah, excellent strawman. Unfortunately most of my colleagues on the right are far more tolerant than I am, although I don't think anyone on the right is anti-women. That's just silly. As is traditional values...I don't know anyone on the right who thinks stoning homosexuals and women is a good traditional value. What I find incredibly ironic is that the so-called 'progressives', the ones who will be up against the wall first, are the ones preaching tolerance for a religion that is against everything they believe to be good.

Fisk is such a dishonest writer that he has spawned a catchphrase: "to fisk", meaning to go over text with a fine toothed comb, correcting each logical fallacy and erroneous fact contained within it. usage: 'He gave the article a fisking to show that the author was insane and completely wrong.'

Er...generally, when one makes a big production out of flouncing out of a thread, it's a bad idea to come back with mulitiple posts less than 24 hours later. FYI. I didn't come back to argue masculinity with CB. Try to focus on what is actually happening around you. It's encouraging though that you have to resort to sillyassed attacks on me personally, since it shows you don't have any arguments left in the realm of ideas.

What kind of an asinine question is that? Of course they are "free" to rat out extremists. What is he supposed to offer them in exchange? How about their lives? Is that good enough or are we supposed to pay wergeld and tribute on top of that for the priviledge of remaining alive in the countries our fathers built. You also, in a previous post, used the usual fallacious counterargument used by the 'progressive' brigade; from the particular to the general: "I know Muslims who don't fit your definition..." (whatever you think that definition is), thereby implying that most Muslims do not fit my definition. Let me explain something to you: given that the Koran, and by extension Islam, is at its root a religion of overt violence, it is quite safe to say that Islam is a danger in and of itself. Sam Harris probably treats it best, in "The End of Faith", when he points out, and I paraphrase, that "a moderate Muslim in the west is a Muslim who doesn't want to go to jail for being a good Muslim". We have known this to be true for centuries; Spain and France had firsthand experience with it, as did first the Eastern Roman Empire and later Bysantium. Here's Oriana Fallaci with a brutally honest description of the Rape of Bysantium, for all those whose sterilized version of history has led them to believe that the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders was bad. It didn't hold a candle to this: It's disturbing and polemical, but it's true. What's far worse than that, before the progressive brigade trots out medieval counterexamples, is that while Christianity has moved on from its Cathar heresies and Holy Land Crusades, Islam never did. Islam today is identical to Islam in the 6th century. You may know Muslims who don't fit my "bigoted" stereotype, but you obviously don't know Islam.

What with all the hysteria over the semantics of what to call us evil folk, no one got around to answering my question: Is it racist to think that most Muslims support Islamic extremism if most Muslims DO support Islamic extremism?

If that's the case, why did they send repeated warnings to leave Iranian waters? When did they do that?

Everyone hates Muslim extremists - that's not an issue and you know it. You are a racist when you think most or all Muslims are extremists and/or most or all support extremists. No, I'm a "racist", because I don't think the immigration floodgates being open is a good thing for western society. I think it's a very bad thing indeed. I also think we're warring against Islam, as opposed to Islamic extremism, but Poor Liam is only against Islamic extremism. Is it racist to think that most Muslims support Islamic extremism if most Muslims DO support Islamic extremism? But that begs the question: what does "race" have to do with religion? You lefties sure get your isms mixed up, don't ya?

My games the good one, you should join the other team. I personally am not aware of todays military using Flak 88's. He never said they do. You misread him. Anyone who has ever read anything about strategic bombing knows exactly what an 88mm gun is and how it was used and who used it and why. Did you know it was also used as a tank killer? You see CB, you have been trounced and proven wrong repeatedly, and this is your tactic...instead of just admitting that you're wrong, you instead seize on some little side argument and flog it. Only this time you siezed on a side argument that's ALSO wrong, since you're imputing something that Dog never even said.

I guess I'll never understand the wilfull blindness of some. The documentary was filmed covertly in numerous MAINSTREAM British mosques. Had you actually watched the documentary you would know that. This does not go on in anything like this scale in Christianity. You could look all over what used to be Christendom and you might find a bare handful of ten member allegedly Christian cults preaching outright hatred of pigs and apes Jews and the utter subjegation of women, not to mention advocating violence against the infidel. Yet here's a documentary with videotaped proof that this goes on in numerous mainstream mosques across Britain as a matter of course, and your response is to point at some lame counterexample in denial. See what I mean? You will argue about everything regardless of whether you know a damned thing about it. There is absolutely no comparison between today's Christianity and today's Islam. Just as an indicator, there are two hundred and forty something self-identified "Muslim" terror groups afoot in the world, all over the globe. All fighting for Islam and not nationalist or territorial reasons. Today. You can't find a fraction of that in Christianity.

"Almost"? How about "rabidly"?

I think you watch too much television. What one arth would ever provide justification for an opinion like that ? When was the last time Iran ever invaded anyone ? When was the last time anyone ever did a military coup on Iran ? Oy vey.

Oh, and BTW, I see that CB blithely ignored the fact that Dog was proven right by BC. Shame how some folks can't admit their mistakes.

Reams of evidence on this topic has been generated by scholars for decades. The only times terror bombing, as envisioned by Douhet, worked was during the Zeppelin raids of the first WW, and prior to the blitz in London. Germany had banked on the Blitz producing the same effect as the Zeppelin raids, but once things started rolling, indiscriminant bombing was ineffectual and just hardened opinion. Turns out that anticipation is scarier than actuality. Which is why the USSBS led to the strategic evolution of nuclear deterence...nukes were never supposed to be used...only used for deterence. The whole evolutionary dance from MAD to the so-called escalation ladder theories was a choreograph of complicated steps never meant to turn into an actual fight. Deterence works, as long as both sides understand the dance. For an idea of just how effective a nuclear umbrella can be, imagine Iran having a competent nuclear arenal right now. It couldn't stand up to the thermonukes of the western allies, but it wouldn't need to. The mere threat of it retaliating with a low yeild atomic bomb would be enough to ensure that it could operate as a regional hegemon under its deterence umbrella. The danger of course is that the US and the USSR had decades to learn what each could be expected to do, so no one ever really contemplated a surprise first strike. Iran on the other hand is a loose cannon rolling around the deck in heavy seas and no one knows what it will do from week to week, so the probability of a first strike would be much higher. A lack of deterence choreography is a problem faced by India and Pakistan too, and I expect the next use of nuclear weapons will be in an exchange initiated by Pakistan following the next palace coup in Pakistan. Apparently both parties seem largely unaffected by the presence of nuclear weapons.

Shame on you for assuming I'm ashamed for disliking the Islamic religion. I have no problem with Asians, Blacks, Hispanics or anyone else not blowing themselves up in the name of religion. you're not ashamed - ok, I get it - you should be ashamed but I don't think you get it And you're an idiot woody. You're too stupid to be ashamed of that, though. What you and the other folks don't get is that hysteria over "bigotry" is what is going to lead us down the garden path. CAIR and CAIR-Can are well aware of our aversion to anything that smacks of "bigotry", and plays it up very well to the media...most notably of late the Imams who were rightly kicked off the plane for freaking passengers out and disrupting everyone. Meanwhile, CAIR and a host of Islamic "human rights" lobby groups are funded by Saudi Wahabbists, and resists every effort by moderate Muslims to denounce terror or extremism. So while you piously close your eyes and cover your ears and refuse to speak any "evil", Islamists are sneaking in the back door. There are court challenges afoot to institute limited Sharia as regards family matters, court challenges over headscarves; all sorts of inroads that you'll no doubt defend on the grounds of "tolerance", and all adding up to eventual inroads and transformation of our society. It's not so bad here in Canada yet, and may never be, since we have a mix of immigrant religions, but in Europe it's essentially the only religion immigrating. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peFQWuk4nuo...related&search= What goes on in mosques in the UK today. It's in 6 parts, about 50 minutes in length, total.

You will be in the ground before that happens. Best keep reading books and watching video. Not much but rocks - sand - big bugs - women are beasts of burden - and camels. You can buy a ticket and go now though if you are brave enough. Best to have a man with you. Borg Go see the Delhi plains. Same architecture, better people, and fewer insane Muslims.

That's sad. Even al-Reuters came out and apologized for it's faked coverage.

It's hard to argue with someone who simply nitpicks every point with some vaguely applicable counterexample as if 1 offsets 100. CB doesn't really ever follow the argument, but instead throws up clouds of verbiage and slinks the argument sideways to something else. I've never taken the time to read one of his posts...he seems to have a driving need to engage in debate, regardless of whether he knows anything about the subject at all. Very tiring.

Iran can do the dance of the seven veils for all it matters on the battlefield. The war it fought with Iraq was more or less a rematch of WW I using Persians and Arabs in place of Germans and French. It was more or less trench warfare. The US and Brits have standoff...they simply sit back and destroy the enemy from outside the enemy's range, with everything from air attack to missile attack to armored...the enemy is mismatched in everything and has no countermeasures for anything. If Iran decided to turn it into an infantry war, the allies would just use flechettes and napalm instead of anti-armor. Infantry won't make any difference. The reason the infrastructure is destroyed is to foul up transport to the front of everything from soldiers to bullets. Direct civilian deaths will be minimal, as usual, because the US has made the choice to spend a million dollars on a smart bomb instead of a thousand dollars on a dumb bomb that will do the same damage but might miss and hit civilians. Probably a mistake, but that's the US for ya.

And in the ones where the 10% threshold has been broken, there is never ending trouble. Given the birthrates and planned immigration quotas, it's estimated that within 15 years the first European countries will have majority Muslim populations. Clearly assimilation is not happening, and pro-Muslim "human rights" groups are swaying the political landscape to a great degree. You obviously haven't looked into this, and no doubt will continue to cry "racism" and "bigotry" like a useful fool until the situations start to explode across Europe. The only country in Europe which seems to be honestly addressing this problem is Denmark, where they actually allow debate about the massively changing demographics, and no one tries to hide behind and promote the moronic smokescreen of hollering "bigotry" at people who object.

By who, and with that kind of attitude it would simply lead to bigotry back home. I'm not worried about the "Caliphate" coming back to power anytime soon. I'd like to see any Islamic country attempt an invasion of a western country. I think in the end even if we kill at will, the result will simply mean the moderates will move closer to extremism, and if anything terrorism will flourish more so. Because of useful fools like you, Islamic countries don't have to invade. You apologias and fixations of "bigotry" and so on is all CAIR and like-minded organizations need to do it from within.