NEWS: Arabs Horrified by Chechen Massacre

POLITICS: Arabs Horrified by Chechen Massacre

Arab Muslims joined the rest of the world in shock at the atrocity carried out by a Chechen/Arab terrorist death squad in Beslan.

(Side note: Notice how Newsday refers to the child-murderers as "rebels" while Arab media freely uses the word "terrorist." Whose feelings are the Newsday editors trying to babysit here?)

Anyway, I’m happy to see some in the Middle East and North Africa are willing to engage in some long-overdue self-criticism. But it isn’t necessary to overdo it. It’s true that the world’s worst terrorists are Muslims these days, but Ireland, Spain, Colombia, and Sri Lanka do have a few of their own. They may not kill hundreds and even thousands at a time, but they’re still terrorists.

Some of this self-criticism really does seem sincere. They aren’t just going through the motions here:

Of course, some just can’t resist indulging in one of the Middle East’s favorite past-times…blaming it all on the Joooooos.

Good!

Odd that Bin Laden has managed to take figurehead status so effectively. There's a wider terrorist movement that, like him, is influenced by the writings of Qutb, yet has no connection to bin Laden.

Every individual has a tipping point. In the US, support for right-wing militias evaporated when Timothy McVeigh blew up a bunch of children. Perhaps, the sight of Muslim extremists starving and shooting children in the back will be the tipping point for the bulk of the Muslim world. Maybe they'll finally grow up and stop supporting these assholes.

Unfortunately, the death of Matthew Shepperd didn't stop anyone from supporting the right-wing christian assholes.

There will be right-wing Christians as long as there are Christians and democracy. But the anti-gay component should go away eventually.

Such understanding, yet we still wonder why they hate us.

How many Middle-eastern and North African news sources do you follow, and how often do you have access to them?

May I ask how you know that 'they' haven't been willing to engage in self-criticism before now? (serious question, not a debating point. How do you know your sources are fair and unbiased, how do you know your sources haven't been ignoring this for a while?)

I'm sure no Joooooos would ever blame it all on the Arabs and muslims, eh?

Ummmm, Sean and UpTight each posted this days ago.

It's possible this sort of thing gets ignored. But you can't accuse me of ignoring it since I just wrote about it and will continue to do so when I find this sort of information. I do what I can with what I have to work with. I do speak a bit of Arabic, but I have not yet learned to read it. It's a hard language.

Ummmm, no. Sean wrote:

This post is a counter-point to Sean's.

I wrote this counter-point for two reasons.

One, it needed to be written out of fairness to Arabs.

Two, I agreed with Sean's post at the time and said so in the comments. So I also needed to counter my own previously wrong opinion on this subject. I know this concept is utterly alien to a person like yourself who is right about every goddamned thing in the universe, but I'm not like you.

Bashing of the U.S. to excessive levels and apologizing ad infinitum for "noble savages" commiting cold-hearted murder is allowed to be as redundant as possible on the CE boards. Nobody seems to be crying about the fact that other topics have been touched on before in those cases. This news post is based on a post made within another thread that Sean started. It never existed on it's own and this prominently. It's big enough a deal that it should be given it's own due.

And what's hilarious is how a few people (ie: arrogant pricks like reprobate) are a bit upset that something like this is posted.

Is there something disconcerting about Arabs and Muslims finally taking a stand about this mess? Or is the paradigm shift of opinion a bit too disturbing for some of the knee-jerk terrorist apologists (ie: reprobate) to handle?

When there's a cure for cancer, oncologists will be very upset cancer is gone. But in the big picture, cancer is gone.

The world changes. Oftentimes for the better. Deal with it.

[Edited on Sep 07, 2004 10:14AM]

Wow, even for you Mike, that's astoundingly pompous and arrogant.

Did you really think I just made it up?

Yes, Jack, I'm secretly attempting to subvert social justice in the Arab world. Thats it exactly.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Michael owing to the fact that he feels himself above our little community has once again posted stale and redundant information.

Huh? He agrees it was posted before, and he's said why he's posted it again.

I'm glad it's been posted again. Perhaps this thread will have some discussion and won't collapse into x pages of ranting nonsense.

I'll give you odds, 7 to 2 against. How much do you want to lose?

Uh, no, he quoted from Sean's first post and completely denied what I said. Hence his use of the word "No"

I didn't say you made it up, and you damn well know I didn't say that. Christ.

Michael, I pointed out that it had been posted before and you said "No" and quoted something else entirely.

In standard English we call that a contradiction.

Good story.

Perhaps American media is still in the old Cold War enemy-of-our-enemy-is-our-friend mode of referring to anyone fighting the Ruskies as "freedom fighters."

Jesus fucking wept!!!!

What is with these assholes?

Still the other condemnations are encouraging. The problem of rabid Islamism is only solvable by words and actions by mainstream Muslim clerics, government and media. It's time for them to take responsibility for cleaning up their own back yard instead of blaming other people!

Yeah, it's not going quite so well so far. We'll see how it does when (if) it gets to page three.

yeah - us Jooooos conveniently forget about those all Buddhist Chechens amoungst the hostage takers...

I agree they should be

I think a major issue is, that it started as an independence movement and the radical Islamist groups got their claws in them. Rebels attack gov't and military targets...terrorists attack children.

There are many extremist terrorist groups that have a broad range of ideology all over the world...but very few have the state funding these Muslim groups do. It's just too bad that many of our "allies" in the war on terror are playing both sides. It's good to see a middle-eastern public outcry for sanity. All that said, the Russian govt's hands are far from clean.

Woah, way to snip there. Thanks.

Here's a restore of the quotes with context:

Are you trying to say that there are no Joooooos who condemn all arabs and all muslims? If you are, well, you should say what you mean so people can refute it.