ScottSA

I guess from that we can safely assume that concrete evidence that countries under colonial occupation were "functioning democracies" isn't forthcoming. No wonder that in so many of those "functioning" democracies it took "democratized" years of bloody struggle and many lives to get rid of the colonial "raj"s and such. But wait. You said you weren't interested in "digging through" evidence. This is high school history stuff dude. Just glance in the general direction of a history book on the Raj or Mountbatten or Nehru or Jinnah and you'll have it all right in front of you. If you're not willing to even do that, and prefer to live in a revisionist haze of background disinformation and half truths, then have at 'er...but don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

Old article, but this really strikes home lol... http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/332/

It's also not the scathing indictment that you seem to think it is. Couldn'ta said it better myself.

Perhaps you should get a job? I didn't know you can be on EI for 2 years. When did that happen?

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3414614,00.html

So why are you sitting around? Why aren't you fighting? Nip those problems in the bud and get to work. Enlist! Then why are you doing nothing? As opposed to, oh, say, you, who only has sufficient ball to post anonymously on the Internet. http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/ap/c/c029484k.jpg Is there a point to this post?

No, it stems from Islam. One cannot blame the myraid other religions which believe in an afterlife for the actions of those who do what they do in the name of Islam. You may as well blame the eating of tomatoes, since there's the same degree of correlation.

It's part of the IPPC trend. It comes out with astounding claims of impending hellfire and brimstone and then, following the odd leak and the odd resignation or legal action by one of the few scientists with enough integrity to stand up against it, it begins to back off its original doomsday scenarios. It's prognoses have been getting a little bit less dire each time a new report comes out. Each new one usually contradicts the one before, but throws in a few new wooscary bits of tard to keep the hemp sandal crowd in an uproar. It's not only a joke, but it's making a joke of science in general.

How ridiculous.

Not if your name is attached. And of course there was no veiled threats either. Of course not. "His criticism came as Pakistan’s parliament joined in the international condemnation by calling on the British government to reverse the decision or face further protests from Muslim nations." "...it should be seeking to restore and strengthen the confidence of its Muslim subjects..." I suppose some folks won't take this scourge seriously until it blows them up personally.

I provided a topic for potential discussion, which does not seem to be against the norm on a discussion forum. Add something pertinent to the content of the article and perhaps I'll have more to add. In every one of the forums that I'm a member of, cut'n'paste of articles without substantive comment by the poster is a bannable offense. That's silly.

Hmm, not exactly stellar news in this department. Wonder if it has anything to do with waiting in endless line-ups for passports. Excellent news. I can't wait till we get to the point that we don't look to government for everything we need like sheep waiting for feeding time.

How do you know? As far as public responsiblity the church seems to be lacking there. How many bishops have openly addressed the diocese and publicly apologised for the specific conduct of individual priests? What you really mean is why hasn't the Church donned sack cloth and ashes and flagellated itself through the streets on its knees while passing cash out hand over fist. Meanwhile, out there in burning car land, Islam has yet to utter a mere squeak of apology over the sawing off of numerous heads in numerous countries all over the globe. Yes, I know, it has no pope or bishops, so it's not fair to expect anything of the sort from Islam. Besides, its Mullahs are far too busy waving swords and calling for more heads...preferably ones formerly attached to the shoulders of pigs and apes from the Zionist entity. I think you and geoff are quite confused. You've dragged Islam into this thread to serve some purpose known only to yourselves. Since you obviously know nothing of which I speak, I suggest you find another topic to hijack. I'm supplying a counterexample to show that the Catholic Church resembles an innocent alterboy (no pun or sexual innuendo not intended) when it stands beside the other major world religion. I think it's germaine to this incessant handwringing and moaning over a few isolated cases of diddled alter boys. I think the Church's "crimes" absolutely pale into insignificance beside those of Islam.

You didn't seriously expect that to be true or anything, did you? From LGF: http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

You didn't provide any "counterexamples" other than the ones I addressed. Scattergun statements like "Africa had functioning democracy" aren't counterexamples; not even respectable statements; they're just your say. And I have no wish to go through every one of them until you can demonstrate that they have some resemblance to reality. In other words you don't want the evidence that I'm right? This hardly takes a great deal of research...it takes a surface knowledge of colonial history. If you don't have that, then I certainly don't want to take the time to educate you on it. Did you imagine that the evil colonials just picked up their marbles and went home without setting up regimes in their wake? Did you just blindly buy into the revisionist hand-wringing without actually looking just a wee bit deeper? You don't even know the historical events of decolonization? If not, I don't think this thread is a good place for you to be arguing, do you?

My apologies. I thought the topic was Hezbollah. Shame on me for not reading the previous thread. Having said that, Hezbollah has recently taken over a leadership of Hamas, or "directorship" role, to put it more accurately: Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, admitted for the first time in public the existence of a Hizballah unit responsible for activities with the Palestinians. He said this on Almanar television on July 19, 2004, after the death of Ghaleb Awaleh, a senior Hizballah terrorist: "… the fallen Ghaleb Awaleh is like the fallen Ali Salah, from the group which dedicated its life in recent years to helping our brothers in conquered Palestine. We do not wish to conceal the truth. We declare it and glory in it. Ghaleb Awaleh today has fallen on the Palestine road. He is a Jerusalem martyr. He is an Al Aksa Mosque martyr. He is a martyr in the fight against the Zionist enterprise… and we will not to abandon this fight and have never abandoned it. We are in a position where we will fight openly and we will fight clandestinely." Hizballah's methods of controlling terrorist organizations in the territories are similar to those characteristic of the involvement of the command centers of Palestinian terrorist organizations abroad (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) in the actions of their organizations inside the country. Striking in this framework are the instructions to carry out mass murder attacks within Israeli territory, mediation between terrorists at the different centers of action, the large-scale transfer of money, and finally, coordination of the effort to upgrade the terrorist capabilities of the organizations. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...a/hizballah.htm

Exactly.

How do you know? As far as public responsiblity the church seems to be lacking there. How many bishops have openly addressed the diocese and publicly apologised for the specific conduct of individual priests? What you really mean is why hasn't the Church donned sack cloth and ashes and flagellated itself through the streets on its knees while passing cash out hand over fist. Meanwhile, out there in burning car land, Islam has yet to utter a mere squeak of apology over the sawing off of numerous heads in numerous countries all over the globe. Yes, I know, it has no pope or bishops, so it's not fair to expect anything of the sort from Islam. Besides, its Mullahs are far too busy waving swords and calling for more heads...preferably ones formerly attached to the shoulders of pigs and apes from the Zionist entity.

Can we at least attempt to keep this on some sort of a mature level? I posted two quotes, one showing that he supported the decrees against Salman Rushdie, the other where he stops short of condemning the actions of 9/11 and instead talks about the problems that the attacks will cause for his own community. If you had stopped the knee jerk you would have noticed that both support your assertion that he holds radical views that could be seen as justification for putting him on the "watch list." And I commend you for it. But I wasn't talking to you. If you go back and read the origins of that post, you'll find that I was talking to Kuzzad, who doesn't share your opinion and who was trying to whitewash Cat Stevens. No need to apologize. hey scottsa, was cat stevens charged? Nope! was he released and went on home Yup! so get over it, cause the US gov. clearlydid/ has. I wasn't aware that we were talking about anyone being "charged." Way to move the goalposts.

actually, you went there for the oil. The propoganda was to remove the regimes for the good of the people, that hasn't happened. But then it wasn't supposed to. "A measure of kindness" , how gracious. Yes, our soldiers can hardly fight, what with the forests of oil rigs in Afghanistan. Can't you come up with a better bumper sticker "root cause" than the tired old oil pipeline that was already in the works long before the evil Bushman decided to spend billions more than necessary to build it? That thesis doesn't even make sense, much less hold true. And why in God's name would Bush Invade Iraq to steal the oil, and then make sure all the profits went to Iraq?

Erm, no. Compared to Israel, they are poorly trained, poorly armed and dirt poor. The latest arms and deepest pockets of financial support for Hamas simply pales in comparison with what Israel can bring to bear, which makes the rhetoric by Hamas calling for the extermination of Israel the very definition of an empty threat. What utter nonsense Hezbollah's arms: WASHINGTON The power and sophistication of the missile and rocket arsenal that Hezbollah has used in recent days has caught the United States and Israel off guard, and officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/19/afr...0719missile.php Hezbollah's training: Hizballah was established by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who came to Lebanon during the 1982 "Peace for Galilee" war, as part of the policy of exporting the Islamic revolution. It receives substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid from Iran and Syria. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...a/hizballah.htm Hezbollah's money: Iranian aid, estimated at up to $100 million per year, remains the bedrock of the Hezbollah's financing... illicit finance network in the Triple Frontier region of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil has brought in tens of millions of dollars since the late 1990s...Whereas Hezbollah derives revenue in Sierra Leone primarily through extortion of Lebanese merchants, in the Congo, which has been wracked by civil war since 1998, Hezbollah operatives "muscled their way into the business" and began purchasing diamonds directly from miners and local middlemen at a fraction of their market value.[6] The highest quality stones are sold in the Belgian diamond marketing hub of Antwerp, while the bulk are sold in emerging diamond markets where the organization can operate more freely, such as Bombay and Dubai.http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:5Rja6Z...clnk&cd=2&gl=ca You're attempting to whitewash a well trained, well armed, and well financed terrorist group which thrives from fanaticism and breeds untold misery, and turn it into some romanticized ragtag army of resistence. These are not Spanish Republicans heroically fighting from mountaintop aeries against the forces of Nazi-backed darkness. These are 6th century thugs who would as soon slit your throat as listen to your pandering on their behalf.

Well, thanks General for that bit of info. Perhaps you'll give Bush some advice now on how to win in Iraq. Oh wait, he has won. Mission accomplished. Is there a point to this post other than flamebaiting?

I'm afraid Myata that you'll have to expand your reading list beyond wiki to be able to keep your head above water here. You didn't even address the counterexamples I gave you.

What hogwash. Oil? Let's take a reality chech here. The objects of those wars were to remove the taliban and saddam respectively. That has been done. We didn't go there to make life sweetness and roses for the inhabitants, and it is a measure of our kindness that we are even bothering to try.