A'Merka

[Brendocon]

Oh now I want an iphone. :-(

Nobody wants an iPhone. They just think they do.

Apple will be manufacturing suicide bombs next.

[/deft]

[Kaylee]

Oh now I want an iphone. :-(

Nobody wants an iPhone. They just think they do.

[/deft]

That sounds like a tautology to me

[bumblemusprime]

Islam would have a lot easier ride of it if its guys hadn't indiscriminately killed a bunch of people.

the reason why the west is all pissed off with the islams is because on 9/11 they stuck their head above the parapet and shouted "Yah boo sucks America, we hate you!"

It's the reductionism that bothers me. Emvee, you'll post these lucid statements about how the West is focused on Islam because of 9/11, but then you'll throw in these false rhetorical analogies about how Islam attacked the Trade Towers. This leads to the same argument I just had with Wideload! "You're blaming the Jews." "Not all Jews are Israelis." "Muslims blew up the Trade Towers." "Not all Muslims are Al-Qaeda."

One of my points in my awesome deleted response was that, unlike the hierarchy of the Catholic church that protects child rapists, Islamic organizations are autonomous: like the madness that spawned ten bazootibillion churches in the South and the Midwest, if you don't like what the imam is saying, go down the street and start your own mosque.

Mm-hm, yep, you're right. Those young British muslims who took it into their heads to blow themselves up on the tube? Totally in it for the money. Yeah.

Not immediate cause, but proximate cause. They were linked by family and doctrine to an area that has been war-torn and poor for the entire 20th century mostly because the West monkeyed with it for the sake of cheap oil.

Religion is a very nice and convenient motivation to slap onto socioeconomic unrest. It's the grease on the chain of the bicycle. Can you find justification in Christian doctrine for slavery or the slaughter of Native Americans or terrorist acts in Ireland? Yes you can, but chances are that you will be grabbing it from obscure, little-used bits of the Bible that don't jive with the parts that are more explicitly doctrinal.

So yeah, those guys were thinking of Allah and the ten thousand virgins in heaven. However, they got there through socioeconomic status.

Here's a question I'm curious about: Yaya, is your family Arabic or Indian or Malaysian or a non-Orient-related ethnicity? How close is your own genetic line to conflict in the Middle East. I'm curious because 99% of the Muslims I seem to meet in America, especially in GeekLand Seattle,

[bumblemusprime]

oh **** they're burnin them books

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/ ... 42887.html

[Best First]

oh **** they're burnin them books

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/ ... 42887.html

Yeah but "they" started it, right? Islam's guys all got together and planned and approved 9/11 at that meeting that time. So it's 'disingenuous' to question or challenge this, right? I



Billiantly this place is called Dove World Outreach Centre

The devote follower of Jesus who has masterminded this was just on TV - his logic is quite remarkable - "if we don't do it - when do we stop backing down?"

At the very least can't the CIA pump crack into these areas as well?

Or is that what is already happening?

[Metal Vendetta]

It's the reductionism that bothers me. Emvee, you'll post these lucid statements about how the West is focused on Islam because of 9/11, but then you'll throw in these false rhetorical analogies about how Islam attacked the Trade Towers. This leads to the same argument I just had with Wideload! "You're blaming the Jews." "Not all Jews are Israelis." "Muslims blew up the Trade Towers." "Not all Muslims are Al-Qaeda."

I posted that stuff (several times) in reply to "Why Islam, why not India?" That is a question with a very simple and reductionist answer - because the people who attacked the WTC were muslims and not Indians. I put in umpteen ****ing caveats throughout what I wrote (and thanks for cherry-picking the other bits) but the fact remains that in the minds of many, many people 9/11 has inextricably linked the words "islam" and "terrism".

That's not to say I believe that history has played out well, or even think it's a logical course of action, BUT IT'S WHAT HAPPENED. Dubya wasn't sitting in the Whitehouse saying to himself "Well, we've been attacked by a bunch of islamic fundamentalists, we'd better go and kick some Hindu ass" was he? If I'm being "reductionist" that's because the response to 9/11 was filtered through a reductionist mass media that somehow convinced a significant percentage of the American public that Saddam Hussein was responsible, presumably the same people who now believe Obama is a muslim. I never said it was right, I never said I approved, I was just pointing out that saying: "The west was looking for a scapegoat after the fall of the commies" is also a terrible generalisation (thanks Besty, your contribution has been awesome. Next time just type "it's a bit more complicated than that" and no-one will notice the difference) and that wondering why the west "chose" islam as this great nebulous enemy is ultimately fruitless. The west may well have been looking for a scapegoat, but Al-Q (which last time I checked is still an islamic terrist organisation) went out of their way to give them one.

Unless you want to go down the "hilarious" 9/11 troofer route and claim that the whole thing was set up by Dubya and the CIA and the towers were rigged with explosives and so on, that is.

One of my points in my awesome deleted response was that, unlike the hierarchy of the Catholic church that protects child rapists, Islamic organizations are autonomous: like the madness that spawned ten bazootibillion churches in the South and the Midwest, if you don't like what the imam is saying, go down the street and start your own mosque.

Yes, but to borrow a piece of movie-industry parlance, what does a potato farmer from Idaho know about different sects of islam? People like to view things in terms of black and white. The average opinion on the street is always going to be "Durn muslims attacked us, den we went an' kicked their asses," hell, that was practically Dubya's foreign policy mission statement. And yes, the reality is more complicated than that, but as an answer to the simple question "Why Islam, not India?" it's perfectly satisfactory. I wonder what percentage of US troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan would cite 9/11 as one of the reasons they were there?

Not immediate cause, but proximate cause. They were linked by family and doctrine to an area that has been war-torn and poor for the entire 20th century mostly because the West monkeyed with it for the sake of cheap oil.

Are we talking Pakistan here, 'cause that doesn't sound like the Pakistan I know...you could maybe go a bit further back and dig up some stuff about colonialism but when three of the bombers were born and raised in Britain (albeit to Pakistani immigrant families) and the other one came from Jamaica that seems like the flimsiest of flimsy excuses.

So yeah, those guys were thinking of Allah and the ten thousand virgins in heaven. However, they got there through socioeconomic status.

Mohammed Siddique Khan (the ringleader) was a learning mentor at a primary school with a wife and young child. According to those who knew him he was westernised (known as 'Sid'), popular and friendly and even spoke out against 9/11 when it happened. Hardly at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder - in fact none of these people were destitute or even noticeably poor.

[Brendocon]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/inte ... 009083071/

[Best First]

thanks Besty, your contribution has been awesome. Next time just type "it's a bit more complicated than that" and no-one will notice the difference)

Waaaaah. My feelings.

Sorry, do I have some kind of responsibility here? I thought we could just meander between making well thought out points, being needlessly immature, provocative and generalist, then veer into caring about constructive debate and make a few valid points, act civil for a bit, then lower the tone again, then act offended when we get called on it, then dictate what it is and isn't worth debating, reinterpret a few of my own posts through a less offensive lens, then jaunt down whatever other path our seemingly volatile mood took us in.

I just say I’m an uber-bastard, say what I want and pat myself on the back right? I just wanted to join in man.

Next time do you want to lay out in advance who is allowed to be glib and sarcastic towards who and at what points in the topic so we can avoid confusion? And who is allowed to state the obvious and who isn’t? And also which parts of which people’s posts we are allowed to jump on and which we aren’t, yeah?

Still in all seriousness - if I have somehow failed to contribute the levels of awesomeness you expect from us all, and have so clearly established yourself, as this topic no doubt builds towards something brilliant, especially now we have dissuaded several people from posting in it at all, I wholeheartedly and sincerely apologise.

Anyway, love the Daily Mash.

[Kaylee]

Mommy and Daddy are fighting

[Best First]

and it's all your fault Karl. I don't know why we ever had you.

At least in this scenario i know who is wearing the dress.

Altho if we were actually fighting;

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/bridget- ... -3/1208946

Bagsy being Firth.

Mainly for fat lookalike reasons.

[Metal Vendetta]

Still in all seriousness - if I have somehow failed to contribute the levels of awesomeness you expect from us all, and have so clearly established yourself, as this topic no doubt builds towards something brilliant, especially now we have dissuaded several people from posting in it at all, I wholeheartedly and sincerely apologise.

No, no, it's my fault and I should apologise. I didn't realise we were all reading from the new Revised History of the World which runs something like:

Fall of Communism. The west needs a new external enemy, and so picks Islam completely randomly out of a hat (the other options were "India", "the Jews" and "Michael Jackson"). Some time later, some muslims fly some planes into some buildings or something, but that's completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The evil western capitalists continue their vendetta against their arbitrarily-chosen "enemy" of Islam by starting wars in Islamic countries. This is for capitalist reasons only, because let's not forget, they could just as easily have picked India's name out of the hat. Later, Michael Jackson dies.

In future, I'll dismiss anyone's opinion that dissents with this turn of events by misrepresenting their opinion as:

Islam's guys all got together and planned and approved 9/11 at that meeting that time.

or just post snippy comments deriding their opinion without saying why. I won't address these posters' points directly of course, or post links to back up any of my arguments.

So now we're all on the same hymn sheet.

[Metal Vendetta]

At least in this scenario i know who is wearing the dress.

Feh, it's me who has to tuck him in and read him a story as well

Altho if we were actually fighting;

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/bridget- ... -3/1208946

Bagsy being Firth.

**** yeah, I'd love being Hugh Grant. *floppy hairs*

[Kaylee]

At least in this scenario i know who is wearing the dress.

Feh, it's me who has to tuck him in and read him a story as well

Altho if we were actually fighting;

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/bridget- ... -3/1208946

Bagsy being Firth.

**** yeah, I'd love being Hugh Grant. *floppy hairs*

I hate to bring it up but I've still not had my juice box...

[Jack Cade]

Ah, book-burning. How civilised.

Hold on though, MV - in response to 'Why Islam, why not India?' you brought up 9/11. Surely that's the answer to 'Why Islamic terrorists, why not estate agents?'

Surely Yaya wants to know why *moderate, mainstream* Islam is being so keenly focused on as a scary thing when there are other religious groups who are equally at odds with Western values. Can't we forget the jihadists and talk about that?

It just seems silly that you and Bumblemus are ping-ponging about who's the bigger victim in The West v. Islam when what you're really talking about is a bunch of extremist nutters versus a bunch of rich, greedy capitalists, where *everyone in the firing line* are the real victims.

[Best First]

Still in all seriousness - if I have somehow failed to contribute the levels of awesomeness you expect from us all, and have so clearly established yourself, as this topic no doubt builds towards something brilliant, especially now we have dissuaded several people from posting in it at all, I wholeheartedly and sincerely apologise.

No, no, it's my fault and I should apologise. I didn't realise we were all reading from the new Revised History of the World which runs something like:

Fall of Communism. The west needs a new external enemy, and so picks Islam completely randomly out of a hat (the other options were "India", "the Jews" and "Michael Jackson"). Some time later, some muslims fly some planes into some buildings or something, but that's completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The evil western capitalists continue their vendetta against their arbitrarily-chosen "enemy" of Islam by starting wars in Islamic countries. This is for capitalist reasons only, because let's not forget, they could just as easily have picked India's name out of the hat. Later, Michael Jackson dies.

In future, I'll dismiss anyone's opinion that dissents with this turn of events by misrepresenting their opinion as:

Islam's guys all got together and planned and approved 9/11 at that meeting that time.

I like the parodic approach of criticising people for misrepresenting what has happened and been said by misrepresenting what has happened and been said.

Parodic is probably not a word, is it? Eh.

or just post snippy comments deriding their opinion without saying why. I won't address these posters' points directly of course, or post links to back up any of my arguments.

why? Because i think your whole approach to interacting with Yaya in particular is completely counter productive and renders this debate a bit of a waste of time - plus we seem to have got to a point where the number of daft comments and dubious rhetoric has reached critical mass - hence not investing much time or effort in it except to express my general distaste. I apologise about not posting links though, that's pretty cardinal i admit.

In summary; Having a debate with a known muslim about religion + waving a picture of the twin towers blowing up in his face = impoverished behaviour

But apparently this is Yaya's fault for daring to ask a question.

[Brendocon]

Will you two just have sex already and get it sorted?

[Best First]

We did and ended up with Karl.

And now he want's juice!

So much for your bright ideas.

Plus on your criteria i think he's really after some Yayaffection.

[Kaylee]

.

Plus on your criteria i think he's really after some Yayaffection.

Aren't we all? I bet he smells nice...

[Best First]

.

Plus on your criteria i think he's really after some Yayaffection.

Aren't we all? I bet he smells nice...

He smells of Dreamwave.

On that note let's all unite against a common enemy;

http://transfans.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic ... 151#117151

[Yaya]

Here's a question I'm curious about: Yaya, is your family Arabic or Indian or Malaysian or a non-Orient-related ethnicity? How close is your own genetic line to conflict in the Middle East. I'm curious because 99% of the Muslims I seem to meet in America, especially in GeekLand Seattle,

Not Middle Eastern at all.

Nobody would ever guess. I'm a 'halfer'. Half Czech, half Indian. Strange combo, I know. But I'm strange, so it works.

I would think most Muslims in America are African-American? Not sure. Maybe Indo-Pak. I think different Muslim ethnicities gather in different cities and states. In Dearborn, Michigan it's overwhelmingly Arab. In Cleveland, Ohio, huge Somali population. In New Jersey, huge Indo-Pak population. Place like New York and California have a bit of everything.

[Metal Vendetta]

Hold on though, MV - in response to 'Why Islam, why not India?' you brought up 9/11. Surely that's the answer to 'Why Islamic terrorists, why not estate agents?'

Surely Yaya wants to know why *moderate, mainstream* Islam is being so keenly focused on as a scary thing when there are other religious groups who are equally at odds with Western values. Can't we forget the jihadists and talk about that?

Well we could, if Islamic terrorists sprang without warning, fully-formed from the Earth like mushrooms, but they don't. Imagine for a moment that you're the leader of the free world and your country has just been the victim of a horrendous terrorist attack at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Your primary concern is to track down these terrorists, find out if there are any more, and prevent them from doing it again. Where are you going to look?

A) in Chinese communities
B) in Mormon communities
C) in Islamic communities

Yes, in an ideal world where everyone behaves rationally, logically and unemotionally, there wouldn't be any confusion between "moderate, mainstream" Islam and the terrorist nutters, but unfortunately the old method of lining everybody up and asking all the terrorists to take one step forwards just doesn''t seem to be working any more. As the leader of the free world (and with the media watching your every move) how would you go about weeding out the Islamic terrorists that live amongst the "moderate, mainstream" Muslims?

A Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey in 2005 showed that 6% of British Muslims thought that the 7/7 bombers were "fully justified", while 24% had "some sympathy with their feelings and motives".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... rists.html
How does one distinguish between a "mainstream, moderate" Muslim who supports or sympathises with the terrorists, and a terrorist?

Parodic is probably not a word, is it? Eh.

Pretty sure it is.

In summary; Having a debate with a known muslim about religion + waving a picture of the twin towers blowing up in his face = impoverished behaviour

But apparently this is Yaya's fault for daring to ask a question.

OK fine, I'll back down, obviously I'm wrong on this. After suffering a devastating attack at the hands of islamic terrorists who are pretty much indistinguishable from the "moderate, mainstream" islamic community (of which one in four sypathise with the terrorists anyway) the west should have concentrated all its efforts on looking for trouble in India. That makes sense

[Best First]

OK fine, I'll back down, obviously I'm wrong on this. After suffering a devastating attack at the hands of islamic terrorists who are pretty much indistinguishable from the "moderate, mainstream" islamic community (of which one in four sypathise with the terrorists anyway) the west should have concentrated all its efforts on looking for trouble in India. That makes sense

it doesn't make sense.

which is probably why no one said it.

And are you really telling me that, say, Yaya is "pretty much indistinguishable" from one of the guys who flew into the twin towers? Or say that guys i know at work. Really? I mean really seriously?

I mean surely just in terms of body mass alone...

And if you are saying this - what exactly are you advocating?

[Jack Cade]

Well we could, if Islamic terrorists sprang without warning, fully-formed from the Earth like mushrooms, but they don't.

But by the logic you're applying here, your picture of the twin towers also answers the following questions:

"Why do you hate beards?"
"Why do you hate poor people?"
"Why do you hate military training camps?"

All these things have something to do with the people who orchestrated 9/11. The latter two are very definitive ingredients. But when an event is the result of a whole bubbling hodge-podge of different factors, it's wrong to point to it as any sort of explanation for criticism of one of those things it's connected to.

A Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey in 2005 showed that 6% of British Muslims thought that the 7/7 bombers were "fully justified", while 24% had "some sympathy with their feelings and motives".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... rists.html
How does one distinguish between a "mainstream, moderate" Muslim who supports or sympathises with the terrorists, and a terrorist?

Well, I'm not a Muslim, but I'd be within that 24%. 'Some' isn't exactly specific, is it?

In any case, this would be a better original answer to Yaya's question (ie. "because Muslims have been shown to sympathise with terrorists") than to simply point to 9/11 as if that's all the justification. There's a massive distinction between someone who actually commits an act of terrorism and someone who merely sympathises with the perpetrator.

[Metal Vendetta]

And are you really telling me that, say, Yaya is "pretty much indistinguishable" from one of the guys who flew into the twin towers? Or say that guys i know at work. Really? I mean really seriously?

To the blunt instrument of the state's security forces? Yep. To the average copper? Yep. To a squaddie terrified of being blown up by IEDs in Afghanistan? Definitely. I doubt any of these people would have the luxury of chatting with their suspects for a couple of years on a TF message board - or working with them in a nice comfy office - before having to make decisions about whether they are terrorists or not.

And if you are saying this - what exactly are you advocating?

Oh FFS I'm not advocating anything - all I am trying to do, all I have been trying to do for the past three pages, is answer what I thought was a pretty ****ing retarded question: "Why Islam, not India?"

I give up. Let's just agree that post-9/11 the US security forces should have spent all their time interrogating Hindus and be done with it.

[Yaya]

And are you really telling me that, say, Yaya is "pretty much indistinguishable" from one of the guys who flew into the twin towers? Or say that guys i know at work. Really? I mean really seriously?

To the blunt instrument of the state's security forces? Yep. To the average copper? Yep. To a squaddie terrified of being blown up by IEDs in Afghanistan? Definitely. I doubt any of these people would have the luxury of chatting with their suspects for a couple of years on a TF message board - or working with them in a nice comfy office - before having to make decisions about whether they are terrorists or not.

And if you are saying this - what exactly are you advocating?

Oh FFS I'm not advocating anything - all I am trying to do, all I have been trying to do for the past three pages, is answer what I thought was a pretty ****ing retarded question: "Why Islam, not India?"

I give up. Let's just agree that post-9/11 the US security forces should have spent all their time interrogating Hindus and be done with it.

You're missing my whole point about Hinduism and the caste system. That part of the question was aimed at Jack, as we were discussing religious doctrines that to some deny human beings rights that others feel are due to them, and how those beliefs will fare in the "new West" paradigm he was proposing if those people want to live there. Which they do now. My point was, if Islam will be an issue in that scenario, then so will countless other groups and creeds.

The "Why now?" part is being asked because 9/11 was almost a decade ago. Had it been a few months or a year after the attack, I would have understood where you were coming from.

I guess it's coming from a mosque that is being built two blocks away from Ground Zero, a mosque that was in the works before 9/11 even occurred.

This is a perfect example of the hatred that is born of the abuse of the media for political ends. The media has stoked this wicked fire, rekindling any grievances that the passage of time was soothing over. The Republicans can spin better than anyone else.

I know "Why Islam". Because it's just our turn. It happened to the blacks. It happened to the Jews. It's not a phenomenon that is unique to Muslims in America. It's the price one pays for being a minority sometimes.

You know who I really feel sorry for? Muslims that are black. Ouch. Double whammy. Funny thing. I was actually talking to a black Muslim friend of mine, and he was like "Just stick with me, bro. We been there, done that. It's all new for you, but we'll walk you through this."

To hear that is, you know, kinda ackward and new for me. To be born in a nation with all sorts of people, having the same rights as everyone else, then to have that "rug of acceptance" yanked out from under you after 37 years of living there. Ackward. But such is life. It could be worse. I can still practice my faith here, for the most part.

[Kaylee]

Never mind, maybe they'll only run with 'don't ask don't tell' rather than locking you up.

If it's any consolation I like how passionate you are about your beliefs and the good you want to do.

My only wish, not unique to you, is that those beliefs were as tolerant of me as I am of them.

[bumblemusprime]

I put in umpteen ****ing caveats throughout what I wrote (and thanks for cherry-picking the other bits) but the fact remains that in the minds of many, many people 9/11 has inextricably linked the words "islam" and "terrism".

YeahbutwhatitsatsaysIRob, I was cherry-picking out the stuff that ruined an otherwise lucid argument. Making this about rhetoric for a minnit, your term paper is going to get a B if you are arguing "Islamic extremists attacked the Twin Towers, and the world has trouble drawing a line between extremists and moderates" and then say things like "Islam said boo to the Western world in general."

See, I know you're essentially arguing the following:

Yes, but to borrow a piece of movie-industry parlance, what does a potato farmer from Idaho know about different sects of islam? People like to view things in terms of black and white. The average opinion on the street is always going to be "Durn muslims attacked us, den we went an' kicked their asses," hell, that was practically Dubya's foreign policy mission statement.

but you are the potato farmer when you say this:

the reason why the west is all pissed off with the islams is because on 9/11 they stuck their head above the parapet and shouted "Yah boo sucks America, we hate you!"

But the point has been buggered enough. http://www.bpwrap.com/wp-content/duty_calls.png

You could maybe go a bit further back and dig up some stuff about colonialism but when three of the bombers were born and raised in Britain (albeit to Pakistani immigrant families) and the other one came from Jamaica that seems like the flimsiest of flimsy excuses.

Mohammed Siddique Khan (the ringleader) was a learning mentor at a primary school with a wife and young child. According to those who knew him he was westernised (known as 'Sid'), popular and friendly and even spoke out against 9/11 when it happened. Hardly at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder - in fact none of these people were destitute or even noticeably poor.

Seems to me like a kind of misguided philanthropic effect, like a twisted Peace Corps. You have, say, Nasser's Egypt in the 60s, all squeezed and smashed and beat up by various parts of the West, but still trying to secularize. Therefore a guy like Sayyid Qutb is persecuted for being an outspoken conservative and he and his followers create/inspire a movement that lionizes this view of Islam. These guys are poor, jailed, subject to a war-torn life, etc...

Then your rich/middle class folk jump onto this sort of thing and make it their own cause because they identify out of religious and some cultural reasons. My point being that fundamentalism tends to ripple outward from socioeconomic distress. I think it's no surprise that as Reagan and Bush I made the poor in the US significantly poorer, the crazy in Christian fundamentalism went up.

Best read I had on this one was a book called The Forever War by Dexter Filkins (not to be confused with the very excellent science fiction novel of the same name). He talks about hanging out in an airport in pre-911 Afghanistan and spying a bunch of Armani and Gucci shoes under a few burkas. He got close enough to overhear what these ladies were talking about and it basically boiled down to "last week we were shopping in Paris, but we have to hang out here for another six months because my husband [an Al-Qaeda member] has to be a great warrior for Islam."

I put myself in the place of your average idealistic young Muslim (not Yaya; he's too jaded after AHM) who is steeped in culture and religion. I see the fractious relationship between the West and the demagogues of the Middle East. Like most idealistic young guys, I want some kind of meaning in my life, so I decide it must be Islam and the problem is that the West has abandoned God instead of facing the harder truth: that the Middle East's political, economic and even agricultural situation has been well and truly ****** and real action to fix the Middle East will take centuries.

And I will agree here that religion tends to hand over easy answers. That's the way I was raised to think. Everything was part of this quasi-karmic plan that God had, therefore one puts question into God machine and one receives answer.

[Professor Smooth]

.

Plus on your criteria i think he's really after some Yayaffection.

Aren't we all? I bet he smells nice...

He smells of Dreamwave.

On that note let's all unite against a common enemy;

http://transfans.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic ... 151#117151

I'm sold.

[Metal Vendetta]

you are the potato farmer when you say this:

the reason why the west is all pissed off with the islams is because on 9/11 they stuck their head above the parapet and shouted "Yah boo sucks America, we hate you!"

Apologies, I meant: the reason why the west is all pissed off with the hindus is because on 9/11 they stuck their head above the parapet and shouted "Yah boo sucks America, we hate you!"

You're missing my whole point about Hinduism and the caste system. That part of the question was aimed at Jack, as we were discussing religious doctrines that to some deny human beings rights that others feel are due to them, and how those beliefs will fare in the "new West" paradigm he was proposing if those people want to live there. Which they do now. My point was, if Islam will be an issue in that scenario, then so will countless other groups and creeds.

No, you've convinced me - after those Hindu terrorists blew up the WTC, I can see why the west would be uneasy having Hindu communities in their midst. I know that Hindu terrorists aren't the same thing as mainstream, moderate Hinduism but we have to respect some of their abhorrent practices because their faith dictates that they should treat a section of their own community extremely badly. They have to be allowed to practise their faith. It's cultural and to question otherwise means that you're a Hinduphobe. Besides, if there weren't mulitple Hindu terrorist groups out there, responsible for multiple high-profile attacks on the west, no-one would even be looking at Hinduism that closely. All those Hindu demonstrations against the west and the fuss they made when someone drew a picture of Ganesha, or the time that Dutch guy was shot, stabbed and beheaded on the streets of Amsterdam for daring to make a film about the life of a Hindu woman have just kept Hinduism in the spotlight of the west's media etc. etc. etc.

The "Why now?" part is being asked because 9/11 was almost a decade ago. Had it been a few months or a year after the attack, I would have understood where you were coming from.

Yeah, it was such a minor incident. I don't really remember it being reported that widely at the time and I'm pretty sure everyone's forgotten about it. I bet by now they've built a nice shopping mall or something where the towers used to be, without any controversy whatsoever.

"Why do you hate beards?"
"Why do you hate poor people?"
"Why do you hate military training camps?"

Ack, yes, your killer logic has caught me out. I hate beards, despite having one. I also despise poor people, like that bllionaire leader of the Hindu terrorists Osama Bin Patel. Military training camps on the other hand - those places where idealists are taught how to kill other people more effectively - are completely harmless and fun. Everyone should have one in their back yard.

[Best First]

I give up. Let's just agree that post-9/11 the US security forces should have spent all their time interrogating Hindus and be done with it.

Rob – no one has suggested this. Why do you keep saying it? Especially when you are apparently irked by revisionism on the part of others.

If Yaya had said,” I don’t know why anti-terrorism efforts are focused on Islamic extremists”, you may have had a point (although it wouldn't be asking much to have responded in a less vile fashion)

But he didn’t – he was pointing out that a lot of the criticism that is (rightly or wrongly, which is a separate point) leveled at both Islam as a religion and Islamic countries can also be leveled at other religions and other regimes.

Which is fair cop. Doesn’t mean that Islam is right in any of these things either mind.

What an uneven application of judgement does mean though is that those on the receiving end sniff hypocrisy and alternate agendas, which is something that should be explored, either to be exposed or dismissed. But dismissed in a manner that has some weight, not “ha ha you are a retard, burning buildings picture” If you want people to respond to criticism you are going to get a lot further if they feel it is being meted out fairly, not to mention if you can avoid the air of just trying as hard as possible to wind them up.

Equally the “why now” point merits review as anti-Islamic tension within the US having increased since the initial explainable (if not desirable – just because you can say its understandable that the man in the street would opine in a certain way does not mean it’s a good thing) backlash to 9/11. So after 9 years relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in America are worse then they were immediately after 9/11. Surely that bears some scrutiny?

You can take the piss for saying "it's more complicated than that" but your contributuion seesm to be the exact opposite.

And if you are saying this - what exactly are you advocating?

Oh FFS I'm not advocating anything

I think this is the other thing people are struggling with – you seem to be projecting the view of the man on the street, or the security forces, or a soldier, or the ‘average US citizen’ within your posts without being clear when you are saying what you think or what you think others think. Also you have stated these things in a manner that suggests because the opinions exist, they are justified, which are two entirely different things.

So when you say – it’s not possible to tell a terrorist from an extremist (despite using a survey which people have responded to as a basis for this), how can someone not assume you are advocating something? Am I supposed to guess that this isn’t you, this is you being the voice of the police?

And either you seem (like i say, struggling with this) to be saying that’s what you think, or you seem to be saying you think it’s legitimate for the security forces etc to think – either way I don’t like the direction that seems to point.