Associated press really shovels the bullsh*t

[Gamblor]

Associated Press, on June 11, ran the story on the opening of a new Islamic Center.

Saudi Imam Urges British Muslims To Promote Peace (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/147/story_14748.html)

Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais, imam and preacher of the Grand Mosque in Mecca gave the inaugural speech.

Associated Press reported that The history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony... Muslims should exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities and dispel any misconceptions in some parts of the media.

The BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3796631.stm) also talked of al-Sudais as the "world's most celebrated imam" who delivered a kindly talk promoting "community cohesion" between Muslims and their neighbors.

Naturally, the pandering of the BBC and AP to Islamists is completely ignored by those that have been following al-Sudais' wonderful peace-loving efforts:

According to this report on MEMRI.org (http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR01102#_edn 3), an Arabic media translation service, al-Sudais (or al-Suddayyis) was caught as he...

beseeched Allah to annihilate the Jews. He also urged the Arabs to give up peace initiatives with [Jews] because they are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs... These are the Jews, an ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption..."

This fantastic peace-rally speech led to his being refused at the Canadian border last month.

In the National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/stalinsky200405130846.asp), Stephen Stalinisky shows that al-Sudais believes that [Christian] "worshippers of the cross" and "idol-worshipping Hindus" ... should be fought. Al-Sudayyis has been consistent in calling for jihad in Kashmir and Chechnya, for Jerusalem to be liberated, and for the "occupiers in Iraq" to also be fought. He often claims that Islam is superior to Western culture.

You'd think the BBC and AP would see fit to include the hate-mongering by a major Arab political figure in Mecca, the very heart of Islam.

Imagine if David Duke were to speak in London on "peace and harmony" - would AP and BBC even consider omitting Duke's white supremacist views from their coverage of his speech?

Why didn't they do the same for al-Sudais? What do they have to gain by the careful omissions?

[andyfox]

"Associated Press reported that The history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony... Muslims should exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities and dispel any misconceptions in some parts of the media."

No it didn't. It reported that Abdel Rahman bin Abdel Aziz al-Sudeis, the imam at the grand mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, said this in his sermon.

"The BBC also talked of al-Sudais as the 'world's most celebrated imam'"

No it didn't. It called al-Sudais "one of Islam's most renowned Imams."

[MMMMMM]

So do you think this error is more important than Gamblor's other major point? Why didn't you address that too?

I agree Gamblor's error should be corrected, but no comment on the GENOCIDAL PUBLIC PRAYERS of this imam who is held in high esteem in the Islamic world???

No comment either that there must be something HORRIBLY WRONG in the Islamic world when a genocidal preacher is so esteemed and popular???

Why isn't this guy mentioned in context, as David Duke would be? What the hell is wrong with these news services? This guy is even WORSE than David Duke, given his public pronouncements, but here he is almost presented as a force for peace and goodwill.

[Gamblor]

No it didn't. It reported that Abdel Rahman bin Abdel Aziz al-Sudeis, the imam at the grand mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, said this in his sermon.

Of course.

I mistyped. Although, given the tone of the sentence, it's fairly obvious those are his words, not AP's.

It called al-Sudais "one of Islam's most renowned Imams."

That's pretty weak man.

[andyfox]

Your post title was AP shovels the BS. It didn't.

The press gets things wrong much more often than it should. I would assume the AP writer and editor don't even know about this guy before I would assume they're deliberately covering something up.

[andyfox]

On the AP, see my response to Gamblor.

"No comment either that there must be something HORRIBLY WRONG in the Islamic world when a genocidal preacher is so esteemed and popular???"

What do you expect them to say? So-and-so opened this center today, and, by the way, you know there must be something horribly wrong with these people for this guy to be so renowned.

"Why didn't you address that too?"

Am I so obligated? Others are free to read his post and link and decide for themselves as to whether AP does or does not shovel BS and I'm free to comment on whatever I choose to.

[Gamblor]

The point was twofold:

1) Why does the world (not necessarily the specific news outlet) continue to ignore the realities of the kind of hatred spewing out of the Middle East against non-Muslims, and continue to vilify the state that is on the front lines of the Western-Islamist dispute?

2) Why did the AP not even find the time to mention it? In putting together a story on a man who advocates the murder of all non-Muslims in power in any areas that Muslims deem "theirs", wouldn't this be a fairly important fact? Doesn't this throw into question the AP's (and the BBC's, they were included too) credibility as a whole, especially concerning Muslim (or maybe it's Arab? I don't hear much about Kurdish or Bedouin Muslims who have problems with Israel or America).

[MMMMMM]

What I expect the press to do is to give a tiny bit of factual, salient background on the man who made this speech, instead of nearly casting him as a man of peace and goodwill (by ommission).

As for your comments, your allergy to offering criticism of anyone who isn't "yourself" or "us" is patently obvious. Rest assured, our enemies would wish us all to be just like you, while they themselves (some of them) continue to spew hate and preach the supremacy of Islam and the subjugation or elimination of others (especially the Jews).

You are probably too set in your ways to begin learning to call a spade a spade right to their face, but you might begin by at least not shying away from calling a spade a spade on a relatively obscure discussion board. To not do so is of course your right if you so choose. However, allowing those who would eliminate you to speak so without rebuttal or even criticism is symbolically tantamount to going quietly. That "renowned imam" wants YOU DEAD--and says so publicly. Hell, I'm not even Jewish, and I think I'm more outraged by his words than you are.

[Gamblor]

is that you are an American, and by default it is your support of the Iraqi or Israeli "occupation" that makes you a candidate for a jihadist death squad victim.

That this man is revered, and that Arab states hold a monopoly on information distribution, is the reason for Jihad.

Americans are capable of separating a man's religion or nationality from their deeds and words. A Jew or Christian or anything, fundamentalist or otherwise, accepts that other people have a lifestyle they choose to have, and while they may not approve, being an American (Israeli) does not necessarily mean you are a tool of the occupation (conflict) and not worthy of death.

This man's followers (and there are about a billion of them) can not make this distinction, because as a result of their religious brainwashing via imams and dictators, the most important unit of society is the nation, not the individual.

[Gamblor]

Your post title was AP shovels the BS. It didn't.

As in, they are pushing al-Sudayyis' BS on us.

[MMMMMM]

Andy, I feel bad somehow for the tone of the above post, and can't put my finger on exactly why. I think very highly of you and know you act according to your conscience.

It just galls me to no end that people don't jump ALL OVER this imam (and his ilk) for his views and his genocidal hate-mongering, and instead treat him like some kind of Gandhi or something. Since that galls me so, it also galls me that you--just like many others--fail to adequately condemn or even address his bullsh!t.

Why doesn't the U.N. jump down his throat? Why don't civilized leaders tell him to go f*ck himself and his assh*le views and the horse he rode in on? Just about the only Western leaders with balls today seem to be Bush, Berlusconi and Blair: the BBB, heh;-). Everyone else is worrying about offending someone. Well guess what. If they believe bullsh!t--and it is pernicious bullsh!t at that--they need to be told that it's bullcrap and that it's unacceptable. They DON'T need to be coddled because that only emboldens them in their aggressive deadly endeavors.

Peace and good relations are not always the most important things. Sometimes, defeating deadly bullsh!t is even more important.

[ACPlayer]

You missed one very important point in the articles mentioned:

[ QUOTE ]
Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, the Saudi government appointed imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca

[/ QUOTE ]

It is the Bush administration's long time friends who are hoisting this guy on the world and giving him the platform.

We are caught in our own web, one of our own making with short sighted, one-sided policies and self serving opportunists running the government.

[MMMMMM]

Point well taken.

Maybe it also could be "point taken" for some who think views like this only represent the radical minority fringe of Middle Eastern Islam--when actually such views are more mainstream than they might care to acknowledge.

That this imam is appointed by the government of Saudi Arabia should say "something" about what "mainstream" really means over there.

[andyfox]

"your allergy to offering criticism of anyone who isn't "yourself" or "us" is patently obvious."

If it's patently obvious to you, you are delusional. Perhaps it's your inability to recognize when "we" do bad things. Your world is manichean, written in stone in black and white: we are good and any criticism of us must be an allergic inability to see things the right way, your way. Why can't Andy criticize the others instead of us? It pains me when the government of the country I love does bad things in my name. It apparently doesn't bother you. And you apparently think I have had nothing but good things to say about our gravest enemies, from the Soviet Union during the Cold War, to Al-Qaeda now. I have also always been complimentary towards Saddam Hussein and Mao. I have always defended Stalin and Bin Laden on this forum.

Rest assured, our enemies would wish us all to be just like you, the better to justify their hatred of us. You're a man who said you wouldn't buy goods at a local store from a person who you thought might be from the Middle East because he might be a supporter of terrorism.

As usual, you may have the last word. I'm done with you, sir.

[MMMMMM]

It is too bad you took it so personally.

I generally attack IDEAS which I see as erroneous. You seem to take my attack of your ideas as a personal attack on you, but that was not the intention.

Most people get offended when their ideas are attacked, because their egos are so attached to their ideas. But the ideas are not the person. If we could not change our ideas when better understanding presented itself, we would be little more than sentient robots.

It does indeed disturb me when our government does something bad, but I try to put everything in relative perspective. Relative perspective in the instance of this imam who publicly beseeches Allah to destroy all Jews would be: Falwell or Robertson (or even more parallel, some prominent rabbi) beseeching God to destroy all Muslims--which they don't do, to my knowledge.

Your gripe is that I blame "them" more than "us". Well, what if they are actually more blameworthy? What if their ideas are more WARPED AND DESTRUCTIVE (on average)? Apportioning blame equally is fallacious if blame is not equal. If their ways and beliefs are more inimicable to peace and goodwill and equality, why should those ideas be off-limits to criticism just because they are theirs (or ours)???

I certainly didn't mean to say that you have nothing bad to say about the very worst like Stalin or bin-Laden--of course you do. You don't seem to have much bad to say about those who believe and advocate the same things on smaller scale, though. That's your prerogative, to be sure. Come to think of it, though, this imam isn't even advocating on smaller scale than Hitler: he is advocating on the exact same scale: the elimination of all Jews.

Also, I don't see the world in terms of pure good and evil, but I do generally recognize when some evils are worse than others--which is more than a large portion of the Western world seems capable of doing anymore.

I think you perhaps may not realize just how widespread that imam's sentiments really are. And there is not anything you can do to make many of those haters change, because they hate you (or us) not for what we do, but for what we are. Don't you think that ideology ought to be publicly challenged at every opportunity?

As for the not buying at Middle-Eastern owned stores: I think I may have overreacted a bit after 9/11. Also, I don't think most of them would support terrorism. Given the fact that many Islamic charities do support terrorism, though, and the fact that much Saudi money is being used to fund anti-Western jihadist indoctrination even in mosques in the USA; and combined with the less-than-friendly attitude I gathered from many stores, I don't think it was a terrible decision, just something of an overreaction.

People seem really to take attacks on their ideas as attacks on themselves. Look at the threads about Tommy Angeloitis: David was atacking Tommy's ideas about certain playing situations--not Tommy himself. Judging by the reaction of most of the forum, however, you would have thought that David had attacked Tommy personally--which was not the case. Here, in this thread, I attacked your ideas and your response. That is not an attack upon Andy Fox, though.

Most person's conception of who they are is so wound up in the things they have acquired over time: little habits, favorite colors, certain ideas, certain styles, certain memories. Yet none of these things are really the person at all; they are mere acoutrements, picked up along the road of life. I would never attack you personally, even if I think some of your ideas are well-intentioned poppycock;-) I hope you realize what I am saying.

[Gamblor]

If it's patently obvious to you, you are delusional. Perhaps it's your inability to recognize when "we" do bad things. Your world is manichean, written in stone in black and white: we are good and any criticism of us must be an allergic inability to see things the right way, your way.

I don't recall much argument with your anger at the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Those soldiers were rightly dismissed and will rightly be court martialed and rightly punished. They are bad people.

But only you (and your "peeps") can somehow tie that to the justness of the war itself, rather than place the blame for the incident squarely on the shoulders of those who perpetrated it.

Likewise the Nick Berg murder.

I for one, was fairly excited to see Saddam out of power. Would I sacrifice my brother to see that, as so many Americans have done? Probably not. But it doesn't make any of the bullshit you've thrown our way about imperialism and oil any more valid.

In a famous gentlement's magazine this week, Michael Moore suggested, in all seriousness, that instead of starting wars in Iraq, the US should have hired the Israelis to assassinate all 190 al-Qaeda operatives.

His rationale was that Israel "is better at that sort of thing", but naturally he did the same thing Bush has done; pin the dirty work on the little people so that they absorb all of the anger and hatred that will most undoubtedly surface.

[ACPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
Your gripe is that I blame "them" more than "us". Well, what if they are actually more blameworthy? What if their ideas are more WARPED AND DESTRUCTIVE (on average)? Apportioning blame equally is fallacious if blame is not equal. If their ways and beliefs are more inimicable to peace and goodwill and equality, why should those ideas be off-limits to criticism just because they are theirs (or ours)???



[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is that in your posts (who is to say what you are like in your own den) you come across as someone who starts every discussion with a long harangue about something or the other. There is very limited criticism of our actions and it is our actions that we can control directly and use them to achieve goals that are desirable. Now Andy, Chris A, Cyrus, Nicky etc have all from time to time directly stated that they condemn terrorist tactics. They like I, believe that there are steps that we can and should be taking (other than shock and awe) that would be more effective in dealing the threat in the long term. Perhaps they are right, perhaps they are wrong but their desired goal is the same as yours IMO.

Example: In the thread "Now I am really cross" an Australian commented about his anger about some one held at Gitmo. In the thread, among many statements, you had one sentence that said something like "Gitmo bothers me too". Perhaps if in response to his post that is all you said, rather than wishing bombs to drop on his head, we can take you seriously.

The other time that I recall a direct criticism was a statement to the effect "Yes, Ashcroft seems over the top". There may have been others, these are the only two sentences that I can recall (in about a million sentences you have posted) that are critical of the administration.

On this forum, to me at least, you come across as being on permanent tilt.

I trust you consider these an attack on ideas and not on you personally /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[MMMMMM]

I don't recall Andy tying the Abu Ghraib and Berg incidents to the justness of the war itself. Nor do I recall his saying it was a war for oil (though I am sure others did). Andy does say the USA is imperial, and that it is designed to be that way.

Andy seems so allergic to the Manichean view, that he does not seem to recognize when a half-Manichean view is actually correct.

[MMMMMM]

Thank you for your input, ACPlayer.

Yes, I realize that most of my posts involve pointing fingers at various pernicious ideologies or regimes in the world. They are in fact the largest needless causes of human misery and suffering in the world, so why shouldn't the focus be on them?

Has not the human condition throughout the ages been greatly twisted, pained and aggrieved by people following illogical ideas and unworkable systems?

Andy asked something to the effect of what was that newspaper supposed to, say there is something wrong with those people because they are following such a person as that imam? Until the free and rational people of the world are willing to point out and loudly declaim the illogical, pernicious ideas and systems that overrun the rest of the world, I see little hope for things to be righted anytime soon (well, even less hope than otherwise;-)).

Why do people get so damn offended when someone attacks their ideas (especially their most cherished ideas)?

Tell the Muslims some of their beliefs are a crock or are not conducive to peace and equality, and they want to kill you. Tell Andy some of his ideas are wrong and that his non-resistance to the evil ideas of others actually encourages them, and he is "done with you, sir." Tell Tommy some of his playing ideas are all wet, and David brings the forum down on his own head for so clearly criticizing what he knows is erroneous thinking.

Can't the world get off their damn egos and attachments for a while and discuss ideas without it seeming a life or death matter to their egos?

If I seem hard on others' ideas that I see as wrong, you would be surprised at how much hard I slam some of my own ideas are when I have seen that they are wrong.

The ego is necessary for the human to grow and psychologically adapt and interact with the world. But when the ego takes on a life of its own, so to speak, it can become a profoundly destructive force.

If the human race ever self-destructs, the cause will be two things: delusive beliefs, and ego.

Trying to see the truth no matter what it is, is one of the most important things in the world and in life. But most of the world would rather feel comfortable than see the truth about things.

Anyway, I see the largest avoidable causes of suffering as being brought about by: 1) delusive beliefs, and 2) totalitarian governments. So yes, that indeed is my focus in identifying what most needs to be fixed.

[dsm]

quote: "It is too bad you took it so personally."

quote: "People seem really to take attacks on their ideas as attacks on themselves."


Here's a quote from one of your posts in question to Andy:

[ QUOTE ]
"You are probably too set in your ways to begin learning..."

[/ QUOTE ]
This clearly isn't an attack on an idea.


[ QUOTE ]
Look at the threads about Tommy Angeloitis: David was atacking Tommy's ideas about certain playing situations--not Tommy himself

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah but David, knowing many would take things the wrong way, was almost anal in his phrasing when addressing Tommy's ideas to avoid it seeming like a personal attack (to little avail, although I think he did a good job).

-dsm

[MMMMMM]

OK, so that was an attack on his customary way of seeing/doing certain things--which is still not an attack on the person.

Also, people should be open to evaluating their customary ways of doing things, even gladly changing for better ways if they are discovered. Most people aren't, though, because they are stuck in habit and ruled by petty ego.

What I most regret about that post was berating Andy--who certainly didn't deserve to be berated--and the unkind tone.