Tuesday, March 11, 2008

On Islam and Evil

The Corner has this which details an attempted "honor killing." In relevant part:
A 19-year-old Israeli Arab woman has survived an attempted "honor killing" by her brother on Tuesday in the Arab village of Na'ura, near Afula, after two bullets fired at her head shattered on impact, failing to penetrate her skull.

Paramedics said the girl survived by playing dead, leading her brother to stop shooting and kicking her. He proceeded to dial emergency services, telling paramedics: "I just shot my sister."

The 24-year-old suspect was warmly praised by some members of his family for the attempted murder. He is in police custody.


What brings this to mind, is that I had just finished reading this which asks the question "Should Islam be banned for barbaric acts?" Try to find another more inflammatory headline, I dare you. But there were some interesting points made in the article. Such as:
The issue of Muslim "barbarism", including honor killings and other forms of violence against women, has risen in prominence in Europe's political agenda. The question appears to be: Do Muslims commit barbaric acts because they are bad Muslims or because they are good Muslims? Does Islam as such promote barbarism or suppress it?

The Arab News, which is the widest read English language news service in Saudi Arabia published this where they threaten all sorts of violence against Western Nations that portray the Prophet Mohammed as a cartoon crazy.
Ah, Life imitating Art, or vice versa?
One of the things that you learn as you grow older, is to not bother the crazy guy who is mumbling to himself. You try to be polite, as you would with any other human being, but your guard is up because you just can't predict their actions. This seems to be the technique that the West has been using with radical Islam.
Try to defend female genital mutilation, or wife beating, or beheading, or suicide bombings of markets, or . . . .
If you can, I would consider your argument, in a polite way, hoping that your mumbling doesn't suddenly explode into an irrational rage. Just like the Middle East.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Snark ... I get a kick out of this. We in the west have refined the art of killing to its highest degree of perfection. We kill with bombs and jet aircraft and helicopters, guns - we starve kids to death and drop bomblets with shrapnel in them so we can maim people, and we kill hundreds of thousands - not just a few. We don't just kill them - we blow them to bits, and when their kids cry, when they turn out to be just ordinary people, children and women and innocent civilians and old people, we apologize. Well, sometimes. Most times we just say "fuck you".

And then we talk about how barbaric the Islamic people are. It's comical! Hypocrisy like this we've never known before, unless it was the Brits, who were excellent killers and highly refined socially - let's just say we're the fuckin' best goddamn killers on the planet, bar none, and now it's time for you to stop talkin' trash about people who aren't near as good as killing as we are.

Steve said...

Oh Mark, get a grip. First, while yes we are extremely efficient at targeting who we want to kill, that is because we do not want to kill indiscriminately. I know to you that makes no difference, but there is a big one. Targeting people that are trying to kill you is different from targeting people who are of a different religious sect, speak a different language, or whatever. Your moral relativism is neither in this matter.
Why do you fail to acknowledge anything that is good - medical treatment for civilians, and for that matter the survivors of those who attack us? I see that you were mentioning starving kids - I take it that you mean the sanctions that were imposed after 1991, which were supposed to keep Saddam under control, even though he found a way around it through the corruption of the UN.
Please tell me how we are the same as the Muslims that advocate female genital mutilation or wife beating? You rely on your outrage but offer nothing is support but your sputtering. But I can understand that that is the best argument that you have.
Finally - Yes, we are the most efficient killers in the world. But we don't use everything and anything that we have at hand. Otherwise, in your dark fantasy, it would have been justified to use nuclear weapons at a high enough altitude to kill everyone in the Middle East and then steal their oil.
Except, maybe your theory is fatally flawed?

The Viceroy's Fuguestate said...

Does this guy have a blog?

Anonymous said...

I think Mark Trotsky has a problem with Charles Darwin.

As for you, Steve, do you have any idea who’s defining barbarism these days? It sounds to me like barbarism in your book is anything you don’t personally like. Or are you citing to some higher authority on what is and is not barbarism?

Anonymous said...

Ah, the precision targeting myth. Not only do we kill indiscriminately, we have a built in defense mechanism - we tell ourselves that we really try not to. I know how that works - it's a psychological defense mechanism. It's called denial. Estimate put the Iraqi death toll between 655,000 and 1.2 million. I know, you deny that too. But that's how efficient we are at targeting.

You seem to eat up everything our government tells you. A little critical thought would serve you well. How on earth did starving his people harm Saddam? In fact, it kept him in power - it made him the source of food and medicine in Iraq during the '90's. And it makes sense that we would want to keep him in power - democratic rule would have broken out amidst rebellion, and we fear democracy. After the first Gulf War there were rebellions in the north and south to overthrow Saddam, Shiites and Kurds, and Bush I gave Saddam permission to put those rebellions down using captured weaponry. We gave it back to him. We left him in power. We wanted him in power. We kept him in power. Now, go figure, and don't ask me to explain everything to you. I have only one request - don't repeat government 'truth' to me. Use your own thoughts.

Why not the nuclear option? Chain reaction, probably - blowback. China has the bomb, India has the bomb, Russian and probably a few Central Asian countries have the bomb, Israel has the bomb. If Iran in 1953 taught you anything, it should be that every action has a reaction.

Anyway, they have threatened to use nukes on Iran - they call them, euphemistically, "bunker busters". It's one of the reasons Iran is scrambling to build a bomb of its own. Self defense.

Anonymous said...

“Use your own thoughts.”

That’s why you keep making a fool out of yourself, Trotsky.

Anonymous said...

I keep waiting for you to add anything of substance, Checker. When is that going to happen?

Anonymous said...

That’s not my job, Trotsky. I’m just here to take out the garbage.

Anonymous said...

A man's gotta know his limitations.

Anonymous said...

I enjoy my work, especially when people think I’m a man.

Anonymous said...

Neither will I try to defend lynchings; the bombing of women's clinics; Victoria Secret commercials; the holocaust; fraternity gang rapes; or the fact that rapists only go to jail for a couple of years; while (non-violent) petty thieves can languish there for a lifetime...

Christianists use the bible all the time to rationalize their crap. The way I see it, christianity ain't much different than islam.