NEWS: Shooting Children In The Back

sean, if you talked to moderate muslims, you'd know that they have been condeming all this stuff.

i'm tired of people saying that muslims arn't condeming it, just because you arnt seeing it on television.

i guess if a tree falls in the woods...


i couldnt get to the links because my ISP is shit.

I'm tired of every tragedy being seized upon to make the same tired "Muslims want to kill everyone" argument.

I wonder what Muslims would have to do to satisfy certain people. Convert to Christianity en masse, I suppose.

http://www.islamfortoday.com/terrorism.htm

Yeah, I'm sure that at the mosque they have targets set up shaped like little children.

They had their chance during the Crusades!

(I shouldn't have to say this, but here it is: I'm being sarcastic.)


[Edited on Sep 04, 2004 9:57AM]

Excellent piece of unbiased reporting, Sean.

Good thing we're waiting to gather plenty of information from independent sources instead of just using the word of the Russian and American right-wing news media to make sweeping accusations.

Umm… he’s right. That’s what they deserve for not blinding following us on our charge against Cobra Commander!

I’m sure it was the Evildoers that killed the kids, since the Good guys didn’t just have a similar incident where they killed a 170+ people. It’s interesting that some reports even link the hostage takers in the theater incident back to the Russian government. I’ll try to dig some of that back up after I get done at work.

i know its wrong of me too think this but i question islamic people as a whole for not comdemning these things more
i just dont hear too many saying this isnt islam its radicals

I know its off-topic a bit, but going through the link that contrast put up had something in the website that made me extremely happy to see, as I've had this discussion with several muslim friends of mine...

Women's Rights in Islam

and no, its not a contradiction

How about:
This, or this?




[Edited on Sep 04, 2004 by Clunk]

Please stop blaming this amorphous concept called 'Islamic Fundamentalists' for everything.

There's no consensus on this yet, so in the meantime it's wrong to jump on the 'IF' bandwagon like all the populist media will do.

I'm sick to death of hearing the link made between religion and terror. It's an old cliche, but why do we not call ourselves Christian Fundamentalists (Republican Convention anyone?) as we bomb innocent people in a far off country we chose to invade?

Terrorists are terrorists. Please break the populist link to religion. It's dangerous and making the world more and more polarised.

You're right, you shouldn't have to qualify that, but sometimes you just can't be too cautious... *sigh*

This whole thing is a mess and blaming an entire people or religion or whatever is the easiest thing to do. It's not right, but it happens.

Blame the hardliners, blame the fanatics, blame the cowards who hide behind their masks (and even behind the mosques...), but don't blame the entire group.

Well, that, and I think it's too early to really say we know what happened in that school, especially when we're dealing with a special forces operation that's shown difficultly dealing with situations like this in any sort of delicate way. I mean, I will say with no equivocation, absolutely, that the ultimate responsibility for what happens rests with those Chechen asshats who seized the school. Of course. I'm just wondering if the number of dead had to go so high. Maybe it did, maybe the Russians saved more lives than they cost. It's just too early to tell.

(on edit: and I see from the BBC story linked above there's some questions if they're Chechens at all. This is just an all-around mess.)


[Edited on Sep 04, 2004 by jake_lex]

Please allow me to interject. I'm a Religious Studies/ Political Science/ Psychology major with specific intentions of working for Homeland Security after I finally earn my Master's. That said, Islam is no more a religion of radicals than Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion that has a hint of violence in its sacred texts.

It is incredibly unfortunate that the most radical and media-exposed of today's militants come from Islamic background. The word Islam itself means "surrender" or to be more specific "surrender before God"...demanding humility and humbleness from all adherents.

The religion has been used as a recruitment device by militants for expressing political anger and retribution for centuries of Western dominance over their homelands. We can't forget about the British Empire and its stubborn desire to rule that entire part of the world. The violence also stems from a long history of brutal inter-tribe warfare that has no real religious basis...it's politics as well. The people in those regions haven't forgotten and still hold grudges. Those grudges are perpetuated by the loans given out by our government to their corrupt governments. The people never see that money but end up having to pay it back through ridiculous tax hikes by their leaders. This is a political war masked by religious fanaticism.

One major step in the "war on terrorism" would be to cancel the debts owed to us by low income nations. What about that money that we depend on from them? It will be a hit to our economy at first. But eventually the people of those countries will actually be able to earn money, thus increasing their ability to trade with other nations, thus increasing (to many's chagrin) the capitalist strength of the world.

Before anyone rants on about the evils of capitalism please allow me to state that war between capitalist countries is far less likely than war between communist, socialist, or imperialist countries. We live in a global society and must adapt to it. Yes, there will always be problems...that's what valid solutions are for...not waving signs around and throwing verbal feces at eachother (yes that is a jab at protestors).

Capitalism is flawed, as is every other system of economic or governmental rule but in today's world it is the system we must live by until somebody comes up with something better, more adaptable, and more feasible.

Back to my point, if these terrorist-producing countries finally had money going to and benefiting the masses there would be far less rage against the Western world and a bridge would be built for us all to communicate and understand one another. Pardon the pun but we have to concentrate on building bridges, not burning them. This is the only way problems can truely be solved and friendships can truely be made.

One side note, if any are interested in the nonviolence exhibitied by Islam, I recommend you pick up a book called "Nonviolent Soldier of Islam" it's about a man named Badshah Khan, a follower of Ghandi who created a nonviolent "army" of over 100,000 individuals in what is present-day Afghanistan & Pakistan.

okay, that i disagree with.

fundamentalist religous thought lends itself to terrorism. you can cite examples over and over again, using different religions and different centuries. its absolutely fair to link terrorism to religion.

i just don't think its fair to implicate all people who identify themselves with a religion as condoning terrorism.

[Edited on Sep 04, 2004 by contrast]

nice link , "why don't the protesters stay an extra day and protest the slaughter?" Protests are used to show disagreement with those in power. I'm sure if the protesters thought that the republicans were in favor of murdering children, they would have stayed and protested. This is the same tired tactic the right has been using for years. Why don't liberals protest the Soviet Union, Cuba, Ho Chi Minh, Osama, Saddam etc... because they agree that all are brutal and murderous. What they are protesting for is to show they disagree with the government's handling of each situation.

Aaahhh, the blame america first thing. It's tired, and it insults the readers intelligence. The writer does not know what lies in the heart of the protesters. I doubt he bothered to ask. For that matter, I doubt anyone has bothered to ask. However, I think it's safe to assume that these people, like any americans, anywhere are appalled at senseless loss of life anywhere.

The article does make a good point that if we are to take the "religon of peace" thing seriously, Islamic leaders must stand up and condem these acts. Some have, but not nearly enough.

However, it descends into the usual right-wing crap about how the United States and those that invaded Iraq are the only ones fighting terrorism, and everyone else is either a sponsor, or a pacifistic enabler. France, has boots on the ground in Afghanistan, fighting alongside our troops. Russia has been fighting Islamic extremism longer and closer to home than we have (although, the did kind of ask for it by invading Afghanistan in 1979). But, in another tired right wing tactic. Anyone who doesn't follow the president off a cliff must be in cahoots with the terrorists.

i think if we follow the logic (?) of these arguments contained in obvious right wing propaganda that the only real answer to the worlds current terrorist problems isn't even the so called liberation of muslims within certain arab states, but the complete elimination of muslims...right? apparently, what sean is pointing out is that they are inherently evil. just like the jews were 70 years ago. so, lels just set up camps and wipe them out. hell, isreal is already working on it for us.

get a clue people - the answer does not lie in one broad condemnation of any specific group...the sad truth is that the average human being if a moron. moron's blinded by whatever extremist belief fed to them will do any amount of stupid shit...sadly, there is no solution to this problem. the human race is hell bent on destroying itself. sorry.

and last time i checked the "good" christian people of the world have done a wonderful job of killing children when it suited them...or just fucking them up or if you're a real good christian, like a say a priest, you could always just fuck the children...right?

A couple corrections to my previous post:

1). In my first paragraph I said Islam was no more of a fanatical relgion than the examples I provided. Then in the second paragraph I mentioned that the Islamic terrorists are the most radical of today's militants. I didn't mean to provide an open-ended contradiction so I'll fill in the blanks. Today the most hardline terrorists are of Islamic background...this has not and most likely will not always be the case.

2). My jab at protesters was also a jab at politicians. So I don't leave anyone guessing I'm a registered independent but plan on voting Kerry. In addition, many protests are noble acts taken up by people with really good intentions. However, the Republican party didn't and isn't going to listen to them so their efforts would be more fruitful if done via other means, petitions to their state representatives, etc...

God, I sound like a fucking politician.

Here's a little introspection from a journalist at a state-controlled Egyptian television station. It's something,

"Our terrorist sons are an end product of our corrupted culture," Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, wrote in his daily column published in the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. It ran under the headline, "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!"

"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims," he wrote. Muslims will be unable to cleanse their image unless "we admit the scandalous facts," rather than offer condemnations or justifications.

"The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us."

Arab TV stations repeatedly aired footage of terrified young survivors being carried from the school siege scene, while pictures of dead and wounded children ran on front pages of Saturday's Arab newspapers.

Ahmed Bahgat, an Egyptian Islamist and columnist for Egypt's leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram, wrote that the images "showed Muslims as monsters who are fed by the blood of children and the pain of their families."

"If all the enemies of Islam united together and decided to harm it ... they wouldn't have ruined and harmed its image as much as the sons of Islam have done by their stupidity, miscalculations, and misunderstanding of the nature of this age," Bahgat wrote.

Other Islamists were more cautious in their criticism.

I'd like to congratulate the apparent willingness to jump on the Islamic Extremist bandwagon. The Cechan-Russian feud is over independence and stability, not about religious views. True, there is a Muslim minorty among the Chechen militants and they are willing to accept aid from Muslim extremists, but it's far too early and far too little is known to declare that "Islamic Extremists have killed over 340 people in Russia."

Who knows, maybe we will find out that this particular group was, in fact, an Islamic Fundamentalist sect but immediate assumptions and references to opinion pieces as news and backing evidence are just shoddy and perhaps more care should be taken when attempting to attack something as delicate as religious beliefs.

[Edited on Sep 04, 2004 by bendi]

When a hundred thousand people take to the streets of a major city to protest jihadist war, terrorist bombings, and ritual execution you bleeding heart-types might have a case you can argue. It is up to the people the terrorist claim to represent to turn them out, not the forces opposing them.

Until they do, they are culpable, to some degree, for the actions of people acting in their name or in the name of their religion. They support it by providing money, transportation, sanctuary, and information. They support it by not standing up en masse and saying "this is wrong and it needs to stop now". Terrorists do not operate in a vacuum. They get help, and lots of it, from people who are sympathetic to their ideals, even if they don't approve of their methods. They are more than willing to accept the benefits, if any, of such actions but they shy away when it comes to accepting any responsibility.

Bush invades Iraq, after 12 years of U.N. sanctions and resolutions, 2 years of direct warnings, with congressional authority and international support and people organized marches in cities AROUND THE FUCKING WORLD! Hundred of school children were targeted because they presented no threat but guaranteed publicity, they were starved, dehydrated, and then shot in the back as they tried to escape. Where are the outraged mobs burning Chechen flags? Where are the Islamic scholars denouncing these people on TV? Where are the opposition party leaders screaming their outrage before packed auditoriums?

Nowhere.

We actually do have Christian Fundamentalists, and Mormon Fundamentalists, and fundamentalists in nearly every other religion. And it is always scary when people are able to justify any action they please by saying, "My God(s) told me to." These people are impossible to stop because they have absolute resolve that they are right. Talk about the Crusades: that's definitely terrorism at its finest. The Salem witch hunts. Right down to Elizabeth Smart's Mormon Fundmentalist kidnappers who supposedly recieved word from God that they should take her and make her his second wife (at the tender age of 14) [my source is "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krakauer].

Obviously not all religiouse people are dangerous, and probably not all fundamentalist people are dangerous, but if you want to profile (and in this case, I think we should, as you would profile anybody known to consort with criminal or terrorist organizations), the Fundamentalist religions are where to start.

I cannot believe that EVERY Muslim in the world is laughing that innocent children got shot in the back in Russia.

There are extremists everywhere. People who step away from the rest of society and follow thier own rules and regulations. Look at the militia in Montana and so forth.

They read the Bible or the Koran, and they interpret it wrong and think it's okay to kill in the name of thier God.

If you really want to get down to the nitty gritty, every war ever fought in the world since the beginning of time was because of religion.

This is really well put. I agree.

This doesn't hold water, in my opinion. For one thing, conservatives and others of those who support the Iraq war are not organizing protests of this incident either, but that's mostly because, for the rest of the world, this is the sort of event one mourns rather than protests. But, again, I agree with you that it's different for the Muslim world, and the time has defintely come for influential figures in the mainstream Muslim world to step up to the plate in a very public, massive way. I hope that happens soon.

Back to Iraq. *sigh*

Look, even Kerry authorized Bush to use force if Hussein continued to resist, but you have to admit that there was something vaguely ridiculous about our telling Hans Blix and the other inspectors, who were finally doing inspections, to get out of the country because we were starting a war over Hussein not having let them do inspections!

That's what people around the world were mostly protesting--or am I missing something?