dagblog - Comments for "Common Sense About Making Fun of Islam"

This has a twist to it I

artappraiser — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 03:48:16 +0000

In reply to Common Sense About Making Fun of Islam

This argument has a twist to it I think might interest you, Michael:

Why Self-Censorship of Controversial Artwork is Wrong

You suspect Anwar al-Awkai

A Guy Called LULU — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:45:39 +0000

In reply to I saw your "ahem" comment,

You suspect Anwar al-Awkai was executed for speech/propaganda offenses. I don't suspect that at all.

Today "Democracy Now" with Amy Goodwin interviews Jerremy Scahill and they talk, amomg other things, about Anwar al-Awlaki. The show can be watched and listened to here. For more efficient use of bandwidth it can be listened to without video.

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/12/jeremy_scahill_on_paris_attacks_the

Also, there is a complete transcript available, just scroll down. I include a few excerpts below. I do not expect anybody to accept any journalists story uncritically any more than I would advise accepting politicians words uncritically but Scahill has a pretty good reputation for good reporting, I believe.

Awlaki was clearly angered by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He defended the right of the United States to go into Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and denounced al-Qaeda as fake Muslims. This was all in the aftermath of 9/11. He was on NPR. He was profiled in The Washington Post. He was considered a legitimate part of the commentariat in the United States post-9/11, as a person who was brought on TV shows to make sense of the position of Muslims in the world post-9/11. And part of the reason he was invited on these media outlets is because he was condemning al-Qaeda. He was condemning the invasion of—or, excuse me, he was condemning the use of Afghanistan as a base to plot the 9/11 attacks.

Then Iraq gets invaded. Then Abu Ghraib happens. Then we start to learn about CIA torture sites around the world. We start to see Muslim prisoners in orange jumpsuits with hoods being brought. Then there’s desecration of the Qur’an that happens. And you could see Awlaki becoming radicalized by these policies. And he goes back to Yemen, and basically didn’t know what he was doing with his life. He got involved with some real estate and other things. Then he starts—he basically starts using YouTube and the Internet as his online mosque. He already was known around the world for sermons he had recorded on CDs.
And, you know, I listened to many, many, many, many days’ worth of Anwar al-Awlaki’s preaching. And up until the invasion of Iraq, there was very little that you could look at and say, "Oh, here’s a guy who is going to be very anti-American." In fact, Awlaki supported the war in Yugoslavia. He was on the same side as the United States in Bosnia. And, in fact, you know, Awlaki was calling for Muslims in the United States to fight the jihad against the Catholic forces of Croatia and the Orthodox Christian forces of Serbia, and he was on the same side as the United States.

The U.S. then has Awlaki put in prison inside of Yemen for 18 months, where he was held in solitary confinement for 17 of those months. He was interrogated by the FBI while in that prison. And then, when he was released, he was a totally changed man.

He was held in a political prison inside of Yemen, in Sana’a, Yemen. And, in fact, I reported in my book that when the Yemeni government wanted to release Awlaki, that John Negroponte, who at the time was a senior counterterrorism official under the Bush administration—and, of course, one of the butchers of Central America during the 1980s—John Negroponte had a secret meeting with Bandar Bush, the Saudi diplomat very close to the Bush family, where he—and the Yemeni ambassador, where John Negroponte said, "Our position is that we want Awlaki kept in prison until all of these young Western Muslims forget about him." This is a U.S. citizen who was being held in a prison in a human rights-violating country on very flimsy charges that he had intervened in a tribal dispute, and a senior official intervenes to say, "We want our citizen kept in your prison without any trial for five years, until people forget about him."

When Awlaki eventually was released, he was a totally changed man and began increasingly to cross the line from praising people fighting against the United States, in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, to actively calling on people to come and, as he put it, fight on the fronts of jihad in Yemen or elsewhere or in your own country. And this is where he really became considered to be a significant threat by the United States, that his words—not his actions, but his words—were going to inspire lone-wolf acts of terrorism inside of the United States. [My emphasis]

And, you know, I listened to many, many, many, many days’ worth of Anwar al-Awlaki’s preaching. And up until the invasion of Iraq, there was very little that you could look at and say, "Oh, here’s a guy who is going to be very anti-American." In fact, Awlaki supported the war in Yugoslavia. He was on the same side as the United States in Bosnia. And, in fact, you know, Awlaki was calling for Muslims in the United States to fight the jihad against the Catholic forces of Croatia and the Orthodox Christian forces of Serbia, and he was on the same side as the United States. The U.S. was raising funds to arm Bosnian Muslims to fight in that war. They were on the—the U.S. was on the same side as Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden in the war in Yugoslavia in terms of the position that they staked out on Bosnia.

If all of this evidence that The New York Times and The Washington Post and CNN now today claim that the U.S. has had for a long time, why was there never an indictment on Anwar al-Awlaki? What did the president of the United States serve as judge, jury and executioner of an American citizen? Why did the United States advocate for a human rights-abusing government to have one of their citizens placed in prison for indefinite detention, when he hadn’t yet been charged with a crime by the United States?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, what’s the answer?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I think that the U.S., on the one hand, was afraid of Awlaki’s words. They didn’t want to give him a platform in a trial.

Scahill also addresses the issue of whether or not el Alwaki was involved operationally. He doesn't believe that he was.

Eric McDavid was just

AnonymousPP — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:21:33 +0000

In reply to I saw your "ahem" comment,

Eric McDavid was just released from jail after 9 years served for "eco-terrorism" when it was finally much belatedly revealed that the FBI had a 17-year-old embedded with his group egging them on to things they would never do on their own, and then covering up her role. [they hid 2500 pages of exculpating information - so much for FOIA & defense discovery]. The amount of bullshit the FBI and CIA have made up over the last 15 years is simply criminal, and yeah, somehow they're possibly protecting our freedoms in a way just like that cop choking the black victim to death somehow may have made the streets safer or made them much less safe, and it rather depends on a lot of finely parsed lines.

But overall, I don't think an extra-judicial killing of Awlaki & his kid helped our democracy or war-on-terror much, whether the current anti-Hebdo asshole once touched Awlaki's frock or whatever his Vulcan mind control over his legion of followers is supposed to be. Because obviously the head of Iran said as bad of things about the US as Awlaki ever did, and he died peacefully in his bed, but that was at a time when we didn't have to chase every anti-American Muslim into a corner (while giving every anti-Muslim nutcake his/her own spot on Fox TV). As for no-flight lists, I'm sure if we put 10,000 people on them with no review, 1 or 2 of those people will be bad people - not exactly the most efficient, humanitarian approach, but I guess if that's the mess we want to make of our "democracy", I'll have to live with the broken eggs.

Well, I guess we should tell

Anonymous PP — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:02:00 +0000

In reply to High school humor used to

Well, I guess we should tell those radicals at South Park to lay off as well - pushing the envelope...

Hebdo attacked everyone with equal viciousness, but certainly nothing like the extreme obnoxiousness of snuff-rape-war-porn of Larry Flynt, nor the brutality of ISIS gangs that hack people's heads off or abortion protestors that bomb and shoot people, or those American conservatives who regularly preach turning the Middle East into glass and then pump up the campaign contributions to send in bombers to do it.

Hebdo didn't make the French overthrow the Libyan government for their oil payout - Hebdo, you might be surprised to find out, didn't even have their own army or even arms cache, much less full contingent of NATO weaponry.

Hebdo it appears was roughly the equivalent of a Sam Kinison or Andrew Dice Clay standup routine - or maybe not even, Don Rickles and Phyllis Diller. But grandma's got indigestion, so guess the boys should tone it down.

#JeSuisCharlieMansonSoDealWithIt

You don't have to go back

Anonymous PP — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 21:36:46 +0000

In reply to I saw a Muslim guy on CNN

You don't have to go back centuries - you can look at the Brits killing off the Iraqi "wogs" in the 20s for that great oil stash (read Churchill); overthrowing the freely elected Mossadegh to get at that oil stash, and now taking liberties with civilian collateral damage in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya & Syria because 19 Saudis provoked us 13 years ago. And then feeding in weapons where we don't want to fight - do those proxy battles. Oh, yeah, our quaint black sites/rendition zones where we can have others torture for us so we can pretend to keep the values we used to have. Yeah, we're doing all this for a movement - the "US exceptionalism" movement - the "they're all violent but we're just trying to maintain the peace" movement. So our generals clutch their crosses "privately", while some jackasses have a religious army while ours is just "personal choice"...

You suspect Anwar al-Awkai

A Guy Called LULU — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:12:57 +0000

In reply to I saw your "ahem" comment,

You suspect Anwar al-Awkai was executed for speech/propaganda offenses. I don't suspect that at all.

You have correctly identified where our conclusions differ. That said, I of course do not think that the forms of speech and the claimed intent are exactly the same. I was mostly noting the grievous affect of both. By that I am referring to the way that some person, or some group, chose to deal with the problem of the different examples of speech. In each case they chose to kill the speaker[s]. Al Alwakai may have been a major functionary but his function was as a recruiter through his power of speech. He, like most all war mongers, did not pick up a gun himself. His hands weren't clean but neither were they bloody, at least until his end.
The cartoonists were, even if not deliberately, and even if doing so legally, pushing a mind-set already in place among some readers that stoked their anti-Muslim feelings. The cartoons insulted Muslims, some of whom were radical in their beliefs and in their response. The cartoons made them feel justified or even obligated to respond.

[I hate feeling it to be necessary to put in any disclaimer of, in any way, respecting or apologizing for the deadly way they responded, but there it is]
The cleric al Alwakai on the other hand was overtly calling for overt actions against his overtly identified enemy. Al alwakai might have said, " Hey kid, you should join our jihad and fight for the Profit, for your country, and for fig pie and the Muslim way, you should go kill those who I tell you are our enemies and here is how you should do it". In that way his speech was different but the resulting affect and then the resulting response to the speech was the same. Someone was offended or felt threatened and so decided that the affect or the intent of the speech was worth killing over with little regard for any innocents which may have surrounded him. And so the deed was done, he was assassinated.
Al Alwakai was definitely involved in the conflict but his involvement used the very same weapon as did the cartoonists and that weapon was his speech. Whether or not he acted out of motives for power and ego reasons over any genuine concerns I cannot know. I certainly believe such venal motives exist among some of our own "leaders" and among some/most other leaders everywhere but I also believe that there are true believers of every possible stripe.
Whether or not al Alwakai [or the cartoonists] crossed a moral or ethical line with the particulars of their speech depends on subjective cultural values. I have mine and they certainly aren't al Alwakai's. An example is that I think that calling for deadly responses is almost always wrong, but in that I am obviously at odds with much of my own culture. Apparently some interpretations of the Koran believe such a response is called for in cases of religious insult. And Samurais, for another different example of different values held in high esteem by some, whether acting as hired guns as they sometimes did, or as devoted loyal followers as they sometimes were, believe that a sneak attack and a stab in the back is completely fair. At least I have been told that. People are fucked up in all kinds of ways.
Whether or not al Awakai crossed a legal line that justified assassinating him is determined by arbitrary laws [all human enacted laws are arbitrary] which in his case and some other cases in the U.S. War on Terror, were sometimes deemed legal, and sometimes by ex post facto laws or after the fact legal justifications which went against previous custom, tradition, and legal interpretations. There was a blatant attempt to justify the assassination. Yes, I realize that is a big part of the debate which you do not wish to rehash and I also realize that there is little chance of changing your view if we were to do so.
The more I write the more I feel I have left out and am probably confusing my issue. The better alternative of stopping after my first paragraph would probably have been better.

Thanks for the link. The

rmrd0000 — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 14:51:59 +0000

In reply to rmrd0000:

Thanks for the link. The murdering brothers killed a a Muslim police officer, Jewish people, and a policewoman from the Carribbean. Apparently both Al-Queda and ISIS want credit for the murders unaware that the murderers have brought people together in their hatred of the acts performed in the name of Islam.

Apparently Muhammad was ridiculed by opponents during his lifetime. He never sanctioned murder because he felt his view of religion would be vindicated in the end.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/08/does-islam-prohibit-images-of-mohammed-n

Alan Moore complained that

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 14:06:31 +0000

In reply to I'm always wary of anything

Alan Moore complained that there was no anarchism in the film version of V for Vendetta.

Horrible. A "religious"

Flavius — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 10:05:54 +0000

In reply to New York Daily Intelligencer:

Horrible. A "religious" practice that should be insulted.

rmrd0000:

artappraiser — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 09:50:30 +0000

In reply to The head of Hezbollah in

rmrd0000:

Jonathan Chait here is making an argument that might interest you; the excerpt:that caught my eye:

....Vulgar expression that would otherwise be unworthy of defense becomes worthy if it is made in defiance of violent threats. Bustillos assails Douthat by pointing out various times when he has criticized vulgarity, neglecting even to consider the distinction that forms the entire core of his argument.

Greenwald and Sacco make the same analytic error, and throw in references to various Western misdeeds against Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. This is the sort of moral distraction it is common to find when a person believes the wrong kinds of victims are being celebrated or the wrong kinds of perpetrators decried. (Greenwald: “the west has spent years bombing, invading and occupying Muslim countries and killing, torturing and lawlessly imprisoning innocent Muslims, and anti-Muslim speech has been a vital driver in sustaining support for those policies.”) It’s the same impulse driving conservatives to turn cases of police brutality into meditations on black-on-black crime. That is that; this is this....