The Koran kontroversy

Cyrus · #1 05-20-2005, 05:40 AM

I do not care if the allegations about the Koran controversy (Quran qontroversy?) are true or false - or a bit of both. From the get go, this was clearly a psy-war issue and psy-war issues are not won with legalese. Or with lame denials.

Here's the heart of the matter : America clearly does not want to alienate the hundreds of millions of Muslims of the world. (Or at least, not to alienate them any further.) This is Washington's official line, which they seem to try to follow, in general (eg Bush's statements to the effect, etc).

So, you have the Red Cross warning you about the possibility of such a story surfacing. You address the matter head on before it escalates.

[ QUOTE ]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- May 20, 2005: The International Committee of the Red Cross gathered "credible" reports about U.S. personnel at the Guantanamo Bay naval base disrespecting the Quran and raised the issue with the Pentagon several times, a group spokesman said Thursday.
 . 
Red Cross employees ... documented and corroborated enough reports from detainees to share them with Pentagon and Guantanamo officials in confidential reports. Schorno said the Red Cross would not have raised the issue if it had been an isolated incident, but he would not offer specifics about the number of complaints.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, it doesn't matter of the incidents truly happened or not! As a responsible military and political leadership you pre-empt this, and see that it doesn’t have the chance of being used by the enemy as a propaganda weapon.

But, the evidence points towards exactly the opposite direction, one of cavalier and irresponsible attitude displayed by bother leaderships. As if they are so omnipotent, that they just don't care. Which, in turn, nullifies the above-mentioned objective of not alienating the whole Muslim population of Earth.

If they were diligent about it, they would not have allowed incidents such as this to happen:

[ QUOTE ]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- May 19, 2005: More than 2,500 pages of documents just released by the Army reveal instances of detainee abuse, including mock executions, by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
 . 
The Army released the documents this week as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU.
 . 
...In February 2004, a soldier taunted a detainee in Iraq with a Jewish Star of David and used gestures that were "disrespectful to Arabs," according to the [Army] documents, which gave little other detail.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can't they detect and defuse patterns ?

kurto · #2 05-20-2005, 10:56 AM

I'm going to go on a limb and guess the response from the right...

Oh, this story is from CNN. HA. Lying liberals.

MMMMMM · #3 05-20-2005, 12:03 PM

Hey Cyrus,

Granted Newsweek was at fault. But deadly riots in response to religious desecration is UNACCEPTABLE by the standards of the rest of the civilized world. No other religion riots at desecrations, or tries to kill blasphemers. No other religion issues death sentence fatwas for slandering their prophets.

Piss Christ drew outrage, but no deaths in riot. Books slamming Judaism or Christianity, or any other religion EXCEPT ISLAM, do do not have their authors hiding in fear for their lives, as must Rushdie and some others.

It's time the rest of the world CONDEMNS this behavior and nmindset: loudly, vocally, across the board, across the media and the internet and across the world. This is UNACCEPTABLE. THEY DO NOT GET A PASS TO KILL PEOPLE FOR INSULTING THEM OR THEIR RELIGION. We should not cater to such a primitive totalitarian mindset, but rather gather the world's voices in collective outrage at their barbarism.

Maybe if enough of the world shouts at them loud enough, they might realize it is they who are out of touch and place and time. But catering to and mollifying them is only going to help perpetuate their intractable beliefs that somehow THEY are privileged above all others when it comes to religion, to the point of even being warranted to kill others for perceived insults. They need to be loudly disabused of this notion, because this mindset does kill. And it is a mindset that CANNOT ever get along with the rest of the world--no matter how hard the rest of the world might try. So it is better to condemn it from all quarters than to cater to or try to appease it.

Newsweek was at fault and deserves criticism. However the rioters, and the imams issuing death sentences for things like blasphemy by foreigners, etc.--are FAR MORE at fault and FAR MORE DANGEROUS. THAT[ is what the rest of the world needs to focus on primarily--telling them that THEY ARE WRONG AND THE WORLD CAN'T AND WON'T LIVE THAT WAY-- not in couching language in terms so as to not offend the most fanatical elements of the most fanatical religion.

The world needs to tell them that they AREN'T privileged when it comes to religion, and that it is not acceptable to threaten or kill others over religion. PERIOD.

Now granted, such assertions by the rest of the world will fall on many deaf ears within the fanatical community. But in my opinion it is better to take a stance on this than to let them think they have carte blanche to run roughshod over the rest of the world when it comes to religious beliefs, religious violence, and fatwas, etc. If enough countries joined together to loudly condemn such behavior as totally unacceptable, it might at least give some of them pause for thought.

Gin 'n Tonic · #4 05-20-2005, 01:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]
This is UNACCEPTABLE. THEY DO NOT GET A PASS TO KILL PEOPLE FOR INSULTING THEM OR THEIR RELIGION. We should not cater to such a primitive totalitarian mindset, but rather gather the world's voices in collective outrage at their barbarism.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great Post

ACPlayer · #5 05-20-2005, 02:01 PM

Another blatant hijack attempt.

Cyrus · #6 05-20-2005, 02:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Deadly riots in response to religious desecration is UNACCEPTABLE by the standards of the rest of the civilized world.

[/ QUOTE ]
Anyway, you dedicated a long post to this, while I explicitly stated that it is not important if the Koran allegations were true or not. And, whether we "accept" or not the religious mentality of some people, the fact is, riots happened.

As were bound to happen. As we should know they would happen.

So, from purely the point of view of propaganda and psy-war, the question remains, and it's the question I've asked in this thread:
What have we done about it ?

Pretty much nothing, from the looks of it. I already gave the links.