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The best way we can "win" this so-called "war" would be to go all-out on development of alternative energy sources and get ourselves off the oil teat altogether. When we're no longer buying their oil, the Arabs can jolly well go back to eating sand for a living.

Well, IIRC, the oil card has crippled the House of Saud politically- if we pull out, down goes the nation...

Patrick Degan wrote:The best way we can "win" this so-called "war" would be to go all-out on development of alternative energy sources and get ourselves off the oil teat altogether. When we're no longer buying their oil, the Arabs can jolly well go back to eating sand for a living.

No, the best way is to smash their armies, dishonor their militaristic cultures, and destroy their autocratic governments.

Steve wrote:

Patrick Degan wrote:The best way we can "win" this so-called "war" would be to go all-out on development of alternative energy sources and get ourselves off the oil teat altogether. When we're no longer buying their oil, the Arabs can jolly well go back to eating sand for a living.

No, the best way is to smash their armies, dishonor their militaristic cultures, and destroy their autocratic governments.

I hate to have to tell you this, but this isn't World War II Japan we're dealing with and the world is an entirely different place than it was in 1945. And in history, the West has tried that approach with Islam for centuries and failed.

There is no one government or army we can smash, and their "militaristic" culture has endured for over 1300 years and is based upon a fanatical religious ideal. We could nuke every Arab capital and occupy all their countries, and unless we could display such totally overwhelming power which they could not hope to answer or simply exterminated the entire population of the Muslim world, we still wouldn't win in the end. In essence, we would have to extirpate the Islamic religion completely.

Care to quote the odds on accomplishing that end?

Patrick Degan wrote:

Steve wrote:

Patrick Degan wrote:The best way we can "win" this so-called "war" would be to go all-out on development of alternative energy sources and get ourselves off the oil teat altogether. When we're no longer buying their oil, the Arabs can jolly well go back to eating sand for a living.

No, the best way is to smash their armies, dishonor their militaristic cultures, and destroy their autocratic governments.

I hate to have to tell you this, but this isn't World War II Japan we're dealing with and the world is an entirely different place than it was in 1945. And in history, the West has tried that approach with Islam for centuries and failed.

There is no one government or army we can smash, and their "militaristic" culture has endured for over 1300 years and is based upon a fanatical religious ideal. We could nuke every Arab capital and occupy all their countries, and unless we could display such totally overwhelming power which they could not hope to answer or simply exterminated the entire population of the Muslim world, we still wouldn't win in the end. In essence, we would have to extirpate the Islamic religion completely.

Care to quote the odds on accomplishing that end?

The fanatacism to the Emperor of Japan was such that he was considered a "god." That renunciation was part of the surrender agreement, and it came as quite a shock to most in Japan when the Emperor said over the radio that he was not a "god." The Japanese were willing to fight to the last man had the US forces invaded the main island and cost in lives would have been staggering. Such was the fanatacism of the Japanese Imperial forces that they would charge tanks and troops endowed with grossly-superior firepower with drawn swords, for such a death was honorable. No, the Muslim extremists have no monopoly on fanatisicm, but they do respect brute force, even while they hate it. I'm afraid that the only way to root out or at least neutralize such fanatacism will be to do what we did with Japan -- destroy the very fabric of their civilization, demoralizing and shocking their people to the core, and rebuild it in our image. It will be a very costly endeavor, but I can see little alternative.

And Japanese bushido culture lasted nearly as long. It's gone now.

I didn't say it'd be a clean process, but it's really the only way to go. And we have the strength today to do so, unlike the West in the past.

(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.

Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?

Well that clinches it! Osama is really a closet Republican!

Patrick Degan wrote:The best way we can "win" this so-called "war" would be to go all-out on development of alternative energy sources and get ourselves off the oil teat altogether. When we're no longer buying their oil, the Arabs can jolly well go back to eating sand for a living.

That's what I said on the afternoon of Sept. 11. Tragically, it's going to take more than what's going on to convince the powers that be of that.

MKSheppard wrote:

(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.

Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?

Well that clinches it! Osama is really a closet Republican!

Which says only bad things about the Republican Party.

MKSheppard wrote:

(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.

Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?

Well that clinches it! Osama is really a closet Republican!

ROTFLMAO!!!

I love the way Osama decries the "morality" of a blowjob but has no problem with exterminating thousands of innocent people. Fucking religious hang-ups about sex ...

Darth Wong wrote:

MKSheppard wrote:

(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.

Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?

Well that clinches it! Osama is really a closet Republican!

ROTFLMAO!!!

I love the way Osama decries the "morality" of a blowjob but has no problem with exterminating thousands of innocent people. Fucking religious hang-ups about sex ...

Hey Wong, ever realize that when a God-botherer starts ranting about something 9 out of 10 he's got the same hang-up?

Steve wrote:And Japanese bushido culture lasted nearly as long. It's gone now.

You really cannot be naive enough to believe what you're saying here, can you? For a start, the Japan example does not apply: Japan was one island with a population in the millions. They had a unified, organised military which was targetable, a vulnerable single homeland we could devestate, and in the end, we had a weapon against which they had no answer.

And if you think the bushido ethic has vanished from the fabric of Japanese culture, you are very much mistaken. It has merely gone underground, transformed somewhat, become more subtle. But bushido is by no means dead and buried.

I didn't say it'd be a clean process, but it's really the only way to go. And we have the strength today to do so, unlike the West in the past.

Heh-heh... suuuuuure we will. We'll easily conquer a billion-plus Arabs, erase Islam from their culture, and turn them all into nice pseudo-Americans within a ten year occupation period.

Seems to me we thought we'd manage the same thing in Vietnam once upon a time...

Darth Wong wrote: ROTFLMAO!!!

I love the way Osama decries the "morality" of a blowjob but has no problem with exterminating thousands of innocent people. Fucking religious hang-ups about sex ...

He conveiniently leaves that out, doesn't he? He mentions it once or twice, but goes around it and throws in something he pulled out of his ass instead.

Steve wrote:And Japanese bushido culture lasted nearly as long. It's gone now.

Ah, the classic arrogance of the American southerner who believes that this was entirely due to American intervention. You DO realize that the Japanese culture was already in a state of flux at the time of WW2, don't you? The Emperor was aggressively modernizing Japanese society in every way. This notion of them being ignorant savages turned to the light by American Power is frankly childish; their society changed the way it did because of its fundamental characteristics, such as a highly educated populace for starters. Their example does not translate to the Arab world in any way, shape, or form.

I didn't say it'd be a clean process, but it's really the only way to go. And we have the strength today to do so, unlike the West in the past.

You can't wipe out a religion through force. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only solution to religious fanaticism and stupidity is education.

Not to mention the fact that the Emperor himself was not truely in control of Japan but rather his Generals. With their defeat, they lost their support and power base, which allowed the Emperor to step in and end the war without fear of reprisals from his own people. This is important. The other hugely different distinction is that the difference between then and now, is also the fact that 1/3 of the worlds population is Muslim. It's not something that we can ignore, and it's not a simple matter of bomb them till they submit-'cause that approach has worked so well in the past .

Wonder if Osama believes in Evolution... Nah, that would probably be the only topic in which he would side with the Christians...

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: You can get to paradise based on judgement of your deeds; you don't have to do any fighting. However, being killed on jihad (Or if you die for some reason on the Hajj - EDIT: I'm not sure where I recall that from, and I'm uncertain of it, so I'll leave it as "possibly" and do some digging. Maybe somebody can comment.) means that you automatically go to paradise as a martyr - In the case of the jihadis, receiving seventy-two dark-eyed houris, who are eternally virgin.

How does that work? Doesn't virgin mean "not experienced intercourse?" If she has sex, she can't be a virgin.

Darth Yoshi wrote:

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: You can get to paradise based on judgement of your deeds; you don't have to do any fighting. However, being killed on jihad (Or if you die for some reason on the Hajj - EDIT: I'm not sure where I recall that from, and I'm uncertain of it, so I'll leave it as "possibly" and do some digging. Maybe somebody can comment.) means that you automatically go to paradise as a martyr - In the case of the jihadis, receiving seventy-two dark-eyed houris, who are eternally virgin.

How does that work? Doesn't virgin mean "not experienced intercourse?" If she has sex, she can't be a virgin.

This is going to sound like treknobabble but... presumably it involves a temporal loop whereby as soon as you finish having sex with them time flows backwards and they revert to the state they were in 30 minuites ago - except you remain shielded from the changes in the timeline, so you still remeber each encounter, even though they don't.

Of course, it's bullshit anyway, so who cares?

Darth Wong wrote:

Steve wrote: Ah, the classic arrogance of the American southerner who believes that this was entirely due to American intervention. You DO realize that the Japanese culture was already in a state of flux at the time of WW2, don't you? The Emperor was aggressively modernizing Japanese society in every way. This notion of them being ignorant savages turned to the light by American Power is frankly childish; their society changed the way it did because of its fundamental characteristics, such as a highly educated populace for starters. Their example does not translate to the Arab world in any way, shape, or form.

Japanese industry had been modernizing, true. Yet many aspects of Japanese culture were still as they had been for centuries. The Japanese were centered on maintaining at least some vestige of this (and, to an extent, they did, as the monarchy lives on) and that is why they fought even past the point that they knew they couldn't win. They wanted to guarantee their culture's survival after the war.

Without WWII, yes, it's entirely probable that future social change could happen (since without WWII you'd also go without the militarists that caused Japanese involvement in it), but it would not have been a rapid one.

My one regret with Japan post-war is that we were in such a hurry to build them up to face the Soviet threat that we failed to do to them as we did the Germans, and rub their noses in the atrocities they committed. As such, today Germans still bear the stigma of Nazi crimes while the Japanese are ignorant of the crimes of their militarist forebearers.

You can't wipe out a religion through force. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only solution to religious fanaticism and stupidity is education.

And how are we going to get that education through to them when they're ruled by autocrats that keep them ignorant, and encourage aforementioned fanaticism, by the point of a gun?

I'm not desiring to annihilate Islam, I wish to stamp out Wahhabism. Sufism is a nicer, albeit unlikely, alternative, but we should at least get rid of Wahhabism, the source of our problems and their problems, and pave the way for eventual consensual government in the Middle East and it's sheikdoms.

It's not Islam, or Wabbawabbism or whatever it's called. It's with the fundamentalists, and the holy book they take as infallable. It's religous fundamentalism that's responsible for Middle East violence, many wars, many genocides throught history, and they have used their holy book to justify it all. When Islam grows up, and becomes more secular and tolerant, then we won't be having so much bloodshed.

Steve wrote:
My one regret with Japan post-war is that we were in such a hurry to build them up to face the Soviet threat that we failed to do to them as we did the Germans, and rub their noses in the atrocities they committed. As such, today Germans still bear the stigma of Nazi crimes while the Japanese are ignorant of the crimes of their militarist forebearers.

And how are we going to get that education through to them when they're ruled by autocrats that keep them ignorant, and encourage aforementioned fanaticism, by the point of a gun?

I'm not desiring to annihilate Islam, I wish to stamp out Wahhabism. Sufism is a nicer, albeit unlikely, alternative, but we should at least get rid of Wahhabism, the source of our problems and their problems, and pave the way for eventual consensual government in the Middle East and it's sheikdoms.

Japan did not do worse things than many others country in the course of history.Germany case is special.Besides you were not too anxious to "rub their noses in the atrocities they committed".As soon as the soviet threat arose the denazification went out of the window.
So if I have understood correctly you plan to subjugate all the ME + North Africa + large portions of Asia, to rule them and to educate them to western standard.Ambitious program.Is the terraforming of Mars included in the package?

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:

verilon wrote:
That said, I actually think Islam is a better religion than Christianity. If I had to choose between the two I'd go for Islam, mystical Sufi variant, any day. Islam makes much more sense: Except for the entire jihad thing, you get into paradise based on good works, it's somewhat more internally consistant than the Bible, the Quran is indeed rather advanced in regard to how it treats women for its era (The Hadith is another matter) - And I can even understand the Jihad thing. If you get killed doing God's work you ought to go straight to paradise, after all, right?

What's difficult about Christianity? The way I learned it is, accepting Jesus' forgivness of sin gets you into heaven. And as for Christianity, I think that, in theory you can get into heaven on good works, but once you do anything wrong at all, you're no longer perfect and can't get into heaven. I view the ten commandments as a way of showing people that they can't live a life without sin no matter how hard they try, so accepting Jesus' sacrifice and repenting of their sins gets them into heaven.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Jihad simply means death in doing God's wish (ergo: doing good deeds), and NOT necessarily die in the battlefield. Let alone killing people (FYI, killing people is a GREAT SIN in Islam, include killing people with different belief).

Ooopsss, Jihad doesn't necessarily means death in doing God's wish: If you're devoting your life to do God's wish, then it is Jihad (so you don't have to die). Hence the Mother Theresa analogy.

Why can't more Muslims be like you?

(and BTW, I read something in Time magazine I wonder if you could clarify for me: It said one of Mohammed's wives was only six when he married her, and only nine when the marraige was consumatted. Is that true?)

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:
As a moslem, I do believe that Sheriat should only be applied by individuals to their own lives. Why? Because in Koran (can't remember which verse, though), it is stated that we must NOT force anyone to join Islam. Anyone should join Islam at their own free will. So how come a government force anyone to apply sheriat when even forcing to join Islam is prohibited?

My guess is governments like that are like the Christians in Europe who forced (I think it was) the Vikings to convert to Christianity. Personally, I don't think God counts that.

Yeah, well I got my own letter to Osama.

special delivery for Osama