Political Crossfire Forums

Rankor and Pissing · Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 8458

It's easy to dismiss people who speak out against or for Islam as either being heretical or extremist. Usually, most moderate people and those who still have some common sense can identify those from either extreme's and either simply ignore them or dismiss their talking as propoganda or categorize and compartmentalize them in some niche and quickly move on... If you're going to reply to this, I'd like to ask respectfully for no trolling or simple dismissal but for those interested, to actually listen to the links provided and comment. I am not one who usually either posts a lot of topics or provides blatant biased or propogandized information (one exception may be on 2nd Amendment issues!). So I'd ask for serious comment only and for those willing to comment, to listen (at least partially) to the following links BEFORE commenting.

http://americancongressfortruth.org/media/Duke_Brigitte_interview.wmv

http://multimedia.heritage.org/mp3/Lehrman-092706a.m3u
(the second one is rather long, so I don't blame anyone for not listening to the whole file).

I chomped on my breakfast this morning watching CSPAN2 and a Heritage.org re-broadcase of 9/27/06 with the guest speaker Brigitte Gabriel - she's a Lebanese Christian who brings some real life experience to the Israel/PLO/Hamas experience and has a book out on Amazon called Because they Hate: A survivor of Islamic terror warns America While obviously passionate and biased against extremist Muslims (I mean, who isn't!?) She was asked some of the same questions that I myself keep asking - like:
- Where are the moderate Muslims and why aren't they speaking out and demonstrating against terrorists?
- How dangerous is Iran and a nuclear weapon?
- What has happened to Europe and the Muslim culture there?
- What are the ultimate goals of extremist Muslims?

She has some very acute opinions on these subjects. For example, a during the Heritage.org session, she was asked, what sort of threat does Iran pose? Her opinion was that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a follower of the 12th Imam ideology, and that his goal is to nuke Israel and that this is a win-win for Iran. If Israel is wiped out and Iran is counter attacked and also wiped off the face of the earth, Iran wins as all of his people will be martyrs and will be at the right hand of Allah. That was a sobering answer. She then spoke about America being "the Great Satan" stressing "Great" - and that whatever happens to Israel will soon happen to America as extremists view them as one in the same.

She also believes that Europe that the West knows is no longer - that it has become Eurasia - and it will continue to be taken over and eventually conquored by Islam. Why? Because Muslim men can have up to 4 wives (yes I know it's not universally done this way) and can have 20, 30, 40+ children - those children grow up Muslim. Christians / Europeans are having an average of about 2.2 children per family. She used Denmark as an example, that Imam's have said by 2050 Denmark will be a Muslim country, run by Muslims, dominated by Islam.

She made points like:
- Hamas is fully supported and cells are all over the U.S. (she cited probably 20 cities)
- Mosques in the U.S. are teaching hate from pamphlets sent by Saudi Arabia.. some of these pamphlets teach that Muslims should oppose Zionists and Infidels at every opportunity. To fight them at every opportunity, to reject their culture, etc... I quickly checked if there were any MSM support of this claim, and I found many major newspapers and media outlets from 2005 citing just this... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1506-2005Feb5.html

Of course she was hawking her new book, however she also shared personal stories about Israel, and how they treated her mother and her with civility, respect, even though they were Christian, they were Lebanese and even treated them BEFORE Israeli patients. Her claim was, this type of reciprocation in her experience would never be returned and that Israeli's would be thrown off a balcony before being treated in a Hamas hospital, with crowds chanting "Allah Akbar" over the bodies...

Yes her claims are harsh. However, I want to know what is the view of those from Israel, those who are currently in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey... is she a kook? Is this just chalked up to "anti-Muslim" rhetoric and there' s no basis to her claims?

I must say, while watching her on CSPAN2, she was very knowledgable, very passionate, very charismatic and brought up excruciatingly vivid real-life experiences, asked poignant questions, provided insites into the Islamic world that I don't read in MSM, Time or see on CNN or Fox. Her voice is a warning: Western world, you must wake up, profile, use the patriot act, collect intelligence, and understand what is happening and what the ultimate goals of extremists are... as well, she asked for Moderate Muslims to reject and demonstrate against these extremists, to take up oppposition to them and not simply subjugate and give in to intimidation and death threats by radicals.

I'm interested to hear the truth from our Muslim population of PCF... is she right? If so... how right is she?

Rankor and Pissing · Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 8458

Question too hard or is it just because it's the weekend?

thundertaker · Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 7:14 pm Post subject:

I'd like to know by what qualifications see thinks she knows all about Europe and how it will be taken over by muslims within a generation and a half. Given the muslim population of Europe is probably less than 5%, I find such an assertion laughable. I'm sure there are many gullible yanks out there who have never been abroad who will fall for such crap and line her pockets by buying her book in droves though.......

Venom · Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 807

We'll I believe she has some valid points. You don't need a majority to be in control of an area. I mean look at Israel, they have a much much smaller population than that of their neighbors that have attacked them look at what damage they have caused.
Look at the UK, where a minority of Muslims have been allowed to preach hate and praise suicide bombers that have attacked the United Kingdom. The radical arms of Islam is grabbing and taking charge while those more moderate stand by and attempt appeasement.

Rankor and Pissing · Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 8458

thundertaker wrote: I'd like to know by what qualifications see thinks she knows all about Europe and how it will be taken over by muslims within a generation and a half. Given the muslim population of Europe is probably less than 5%, I find such an assertion laughable. I'm sure there are many gullible yanks out there who have never been abroad who will fall for such crap and line her pockets by buying her book in droves though.......

You only find it laughable because you haven't actually looked into it have you? If you have looked into it and viewed the math of it, you may actually learn that not only is she correct, but she's VERY correct... Gullible? Hardly... don't you know what happens when you assume? Insinuating I'm gullible and also assuming I know little about European history, or haven't looked into the facts is what's called a "bad assumption".

I also believe she specifically stated Denmark's population in the Heritage.org section... but, then again, you didn't listen to that part did you... and the ignorant stay ignorant I guess.

In previous threads (which I cannot find at the moment) but basically identified the amount of Muslim immigrants coming into Germany, identified the birth rate of those immigrants, took into account the birth rate of native Germans - then calculated the death rates using information based out of the EU - what that showed was a 5x increase in Muslim children, and a decrease in population of native Germans. It doesn't take a brain trust to understand what happens over a set period of time.

One only needs to to able to do some basic math calculations for themselves.

Venom · Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 807

Windows has a built in calculator

Slythe · Joined: 09 Jan 2005 Posts: 1407 Location: US of A

Venom wrote: Windows has a built in calculator

You don't say? I must use it sometime. :think:

thundertaker · Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 4:41 am Post subject:

Rankor and Pissing wrote:

You only find it laughable because you haven't actually looked into it have you? If you have looked into it and viewed the math of it, you may actually learn that not only is she correct, but she's VERY correct... Gullible? Hardly... don't you know what happens when you assume? Insinuating I'm gullible and also assuming I know little about European history, or haven't looked into the facts is what's called a "bad assumption".

I also believe she specifically stated Denmark's population in the Heritage.org section... but, then again, you didn't listen to that part did you... and the ignorant stay ignorant I guess.

In previous threads (which I cannot find at the moment) but basically identified the amount of Muslim immigrants coming into Germany, identified the birth rate of those immigrants, took into account the birth rate of native Germans - then calculated the death rates using information based out of the EU - what that showed was a 5x increase in Muslim children, and a decrease in population of native Germans. It doesn't take a brain trust to understand what happens over a set period of time.

One only needs to to able to do some basic math calculations for themselves.

The fact that she mentions that muslim men are allowed to have 4 wives as a factor in an increasing muslim population just confirmed the fact she was talking crap with me.
Monogomy is by far the norm in most of the muslim world, especially muslims residing in the west. Marrying more than one wife is bigamy and therefore illegal, and is frowned upon by ordinary muslims. She's nothing more than a hawker flogging her wares......

Venom · Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 807

Quote: The fact that she mentions that muslim men are allowed to have 4 wives as a factor in an increasing muslim population just confirmed the fact she was talking crap with me.
Monogomy is by far the norm in most of the muslim world, especially muslims residing in the west. Marrying more than one wife is bigamy and therefore illegal, and is frowned upon by ordinary muslims. She's nothing more than a hawker flogging her wares......
So if a person had 1 wife and then say 3 girlfriends that are not "legally" married to him then it's just cheating. Is that against the law in Europe? It's not illegal in the United States.

Rankor and Pissing · Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 8458

I find it interesting that not 1... not 1 member of a ME country or self-professed Muslim has commented either positively or negatively to this post.

This has now been here at least a few days... what does this say - is the deafening silence equate to "aggreement"? I know it was Eid yesterday, so it's certainly excusible... but I'm hoping that some of our regular's from Lebanon, Palestine, ect. will still comment.

slitedeviance · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 1507

Venom wrote: So if a person had 1 wife and then say 3 girlfriends that are not "legally" married to him then it's just cheating. Is that against the law in Europe? It's not illegal in the United States.

Weak point because thats an option available to everyone regardless of religion or belief. Stick to the specifics we're looking at.

Looking at the OP, I agree Iran is an issue, but I think that the approach of the US in particular (not singular) has heightened both the stakes and the rhetoric. Why is the US leadership not willing to talk directly to the Iranian leadership? They have requested it, and if the administration had any interest in pursuing all diplomatic options surely they would open a direct dialogue?

Secondly, I would say she has little clue about Europe and the state of affairs. There has been what I would class as a systematic deflection (certainly in the UK) away from placing any blame for the ongoing problems with race relations between muslim and predominantly white middle class communities away from the Government. The Muslim population of Europe, as noted previously is around 5%. Whilst there is certainly a decline in the Birth Rate there is no reason to suspect that short of an epic coversion experience, Islam will not remain one of the many beliefs practiced in Europe. I'd also say she has little understanding of how European politics and cultural influences work. For the most part Europeans are highly disdainful of each others cultures, whilst maintaining a sense of connection due to our history. To think that a state with the history of Germany for example would move towards any sort of connection with people who deny the holocaust shows how little this was properly thought out. She also has failed to recognise the new rise of the extreme right wing (again, especially in Eastern Germany and Britain) and the effect this will have on immigration.

To coutenance the idea of a religous takeover does not fully recognise the extent to which secularism is a way of life for Europe and I have yet to see any evidence to convince me of the opposite.

From the links you provided I'll agree that she is impassioned, articulate and very forceful in what she says. To me, that doesn't make the content of what she is saying any more correct.

Saracen · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Posts: 15233 Location: On Earth

Rankor and Pissing, you pose an interesting question. Unfortunately, I don't have the time and energy to answer it now.

Rankor and Pissing · Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 8458

Saracen wrote: Rankor and Pissing, you pose an interesting question. Unfortunately, I don't have the time and energy to answer it now.

No worries... it'll still be here after the festivities!

emerald · Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 6927 Location: uk

i will comment, but probably not until thursday as i dispise links.but i will get round to read it then

Muslima · Joined: 13 Nov 2005 Posts: 1385

All I can say is that I have analyzed from the daily life that

1. Islam is a growing religion, no matter where.
2. Yes, we are taught to refuse zionism in any way.
3. Moderate Muslims want to speak but they are afraid, politics is so biased in the ME.
4. Exteremists want a dominant Islam.
5. I don't know the Lebanses women, so I can't judge.

Sorry I tried to listen to the links but it took a long buffering time.....

Saracen · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Posts: 15233 Location: On Earth

Rankor and Pissing wrote: No worries... it'll still be here after the festivities!

The festivities weren't as good as I hoped... Anyways...

Rankor and Pissing wrote: It's easy to dismiss people who speak out against or for Islam as either being heretical or extremist. Usually, most moderate people and those who still have some common sense can identify those from either extreme's and either simply ignore them or dismiss their talking as propoganda or categorize and compartmentalize them in some niche and quickly move on... If you're going to reply to this, I'd like to ask respectfully for no trolling or simple dismissal but for those interested, to actually listen to the links provided and comment. I am not one who usually either posts a lot of topics or provides blatant biased or propogandized information (one exception may be on 2nd Amendment issues!). So I'd ask for serious comment only and for those willing to comment, to listen (at least partially) to the following links BEFORE commenting.

http://americancongressfortruth.org/media/Duke_Brigitte_interview.wmv

http://multimedia.heritage.org/mp3/Lehrman-092706a.m3u
(the second one is rather long, so I don't blame anyone for not listening to the whole file).

Brigitte Gabriel is an Arab Zionist... not that I don't tolerate her views. There are a lot of Arab and even Muslim Zionists (here is a source). There are even Palestinian Zionists like Noni Darwish and Anis Shorrosh, as well as Walid Shoebat, who are not Muslim, but that's not the question here. I don't dismiss her views as radical. She just happens to be an Arab who has Zionist views.

Quote: I chomped on my breakfast this morning watching CSPAN2 and a Heritage.org re-broadcase of 9/27/06 with the guest speaker Brigitte Gabriel - she's a Lebanese Christian who brings some real life experience to the Israel/PLO/Hamas experience and has a book out on Amazon called Because they Hate: A survivor of Islamic terror warns America While obviously passionate and biased against extremist Muslims (I mean, who isn't!?)

I am biased against them, but not against them totally. I am always an objective critic. There is absolutely no way that Muslims hate the West "because of their freedoms". That fallacious argument went into the same trash bin with "Barney the dinosaur is a heterosexual". Also, I know this is a gliterring generalization, but a lot of Lebanese Maronites are Zionists for the sole reason that Israel helped them in the Lebanese Civil War, which was a brutal war.

Quote: She was asked some of the same questions that I myself keep asking - like:
- Where are the moderate Muslims and why aren't they speaking out and demonstrating against terrorists?

If you're talking about Arab countries, they do so in the media, and even in newspapers like Asharq Al Awsat. Columnists and others occassionally denounce not only anti-Semitism, but terrorism and Zionism on the same note.

Quote: - How dangerous is Iran and a nuclear weapon?

Not at all.

Quote: - What has happened to Europe and the Muslim culture there?

Europe is experiencing a rise of neo-fascist anti-Muslim hatred, and Muslims have in a sense become the new Jews of Europe.

Quote: - What are the ultimate goals of extremist Muslims?

Get the West out of the East... totally.

Quote: She has some very acute opinions on these subjects. For example, a during the Heritage.org session, she was asked, what sort of threat does Iran pose? Her opinion was that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a follower of the 12th Imam ideology, and that his goal is to nuke Israel and that this is a win-win for Iran. If Israel is wiped out and Iran is counter attacked and also wiped off the face of the earth, Iran wins as all of his people will be martyrs and will be at the right hand of Allah. That was a sobering answer. She then spoke about America being "the Great Satan" stressing "Great" - and that whatever happens to Israel will soon happen to America as extremists view them as one in the same.

That's absurd. To simply dismiss all your opponents as simple extremists destroys any political criticism of the issue at hand. It's like closing your ears to them just because you believe they're just stupid and they are doing these things out of their own accord and with no reason whatsoever.

Quote: She also believes that Europe that the West knows is no longer - that it has become Eurasia - and it will continue to be taken over and eventually conquored by Islam. Why? Because Muslim men can have up to 4 wives (yes I know it's not universally done this way) and can have 20, 30, 40+ children - those children grow up Muslim. Christians / Europeans are having an average of about 2.2 children per family. She used Denmark as an example, that Imam's have said by 2050 Denmark will be a Muslim country, run by Muslims, dominated by Islam.

That's not true. Muslims don't have as much children. Also, Muslims, while the second-largest religious group in Europe, are not by any means that big: they make up a very small percentage of most European countries, save for those that have majorities like Albania and Turkey. Also, while Muslims can have up to 4 wives, remember that pre-Islamic times were times when men had more than ten times that number of wives. Moreover, Muslims are encouraged more often than not in countries of the MidEast to be as monogamous as possible; only rich Muslims can afford to have more than one wife, and even that is a rarity.

Quote: She made points like:
- Hamas is fully supported and cells are all over the U.S. (she cited probably 20 cities)

CAIR? Is it because they support the Palestinian cause? Tell me exactly how?

Quote: - Mosques in the U.S. are teaching hate from pamphlets sent by Saudi Arabia.. some of these pamphlets teach that Muslims should oppose Zionists and Infidels at every opportunity. To fight them at every opportunity, to reject their culture, etc... I quickly checked if there were any MSM support of this claim, and I found many major newspapers and media outlets from 2005 citing just this... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1506-2005Feb5.html

That's because these clerics view the culture as invasive on certain Muslim values. It's not a bad thing; however, it is possible to reject the dominant culture and co-exist within that culture. I think it's wrong to kill people just because they're not Muslim, and Islam agrees with me. Regarding Zionism, I think that most sheikhs proposed that Zionism should be met with countering activism, because Zionism, in my opinion, is not at all compatible with Islamic teachings. And then again, Islamism, the Muslim equal of Zionism, is not compatible with Islam either.

Quote: Of course she was hawking her new book, however she also shared personal stories about Israel, and how they treated her mother and her with civility, respect, even though they were Christian, they were Lebanese and even treated them BEFORE Israeli patients. Her claim was, this type of reciprocation in her experience would never be returned and that Israeli's would be thrown off a balcony before being treated in a Hamas hospital, with crowds chanting "Allah Akbar" over the bodies...

How does she know that? I really doubt it.

Quote: Yes her claims are harsh. However, I want to know what is the view of those from Israel, those who are currently in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey... is she a kook? Is this just chalked up to "anti-Muslim" rhetoric and there' s no basis to her claims?

She didn't claim she was anti-Muslim, though her accusations veil such bigotry. I believe that she has a right to criticize the systems, but she has to realize that her experiences alone are limited: you will hear from many people that Muslims treat people with civility and respect and Jews treat people like scum. Those are just from experiences and thus not accurate. That is to say that collectivism is not a good argument.

Quote: I must say, while watching her on CSPAN2, she was very knowledgable, very passionate, very charismatic and brought up excruciatingly vivid real-life experiences, asked poignant questions, provided insites into the Islamic world that I don't read in MSM, Time or see on CNN or Fox. Her voice is a warning: Western world, you must wake up, profile, use the patriot act, collect intelligence, and understand what is happening and what the ultimate goals of extremists are... as well, she asked for Moderate Muslims to reject and demonstrate against these extremists, to take up oppposition to them and not simply subjugate and give in to intimidation and death threats by radicals

Sorry... I am against the Patriot Act, and I am against this unilateral movement. I think that she needs to realize what the West has done in the past. That's why I believe that the East and West should come clean, hold themselves accountable for all actions, and work towards a resolution to the darkness that's eating this world up.

Quote: I'm interested to hear the truth from our Muslim population of PCF... is she right? If so... how right is she?

She's not entirely correct. She's very wrong on many parts, among them her Zionist position, which I frankly think is based on limited experiences. She has quite a lot of things incorrect, especially her overly bloody accusations on Palestinians and Hamas, who are not as bloody, though still despicable. Furthermore, I believe that she should re-evaluate the reasons to why the extremist Muslims are doing this so she may have a more balanced criticism. She should also refrain from collectivism.

emerald · Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 6927 Location: uk

sorry, i honestly couldnt watch the whole of that interview with Brigitte Gabriel, i actually found it very sad, and i can understand the way she feels and why she feels the way she does. The way she lived in lebanon souds absolutely horrific, and i would imagine it would have a huge impact on anyones views of the people arund them having lived that way. it would have been interesting though to maybe have a muslim lebanese during the same period of time she spoke talking about their life experiences there, because if i recall from various articles i read a while ago the labanese christians werent exactly sata round just waiting to be butchered and did their fair share too. this gives only one side of a very complicated conflict.

maybe my life isnt exactly like many arabs, having one side of my family christian or atheist, a british mum, having lived in the Uk from a young age, and event he way my parents bought us up was to accept people as they were it didnt matter what religion they were or where they came from or the opinions they held. so i was never told to hate jews or israel, nor did my parents even talk about jews or how 'bad' they supposedly are, and most from North Africa dont really care very much for the situation in Israel/palestine, maybe because they dont feel so directly effected by it. the news isnt centred round it, all we used to get was the leaders face everywhere showing how great he was and allt he great thigns he did for the country (not).

i'll get back to you on some toher points maybe later.

brian_in_idaho · Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 283 Location: Northern Idaho

I listened to both links, the woman is very poised and articulate. She has had a pretty horiffic life and paints a pretty bleak picture of the treatment of both Christians and Jews by Muslims in Lebanon. She claims to speak from personal experience in this regard, I spend a fair amount of time "googling" her and didn't find anything to refute her "biography", as far as the time she claimed to be in Lebanon. I would like to think that Islam is as peaceful and progressive (for lack of a better term) as other mainstream religions, and that the violence perpertrated in the name of Islam is a perversion of the religion by a very small minority. The shear volume of incidents coming to light makes me question that. At best, it would seem that Islam draws and incites violent people.

I question her conclusions with respect to Europe and Iran, but at the least she needs to be listened to and understood.

Brian

brian_in_idaho · Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 283 Location: Northern Idaho

Saracen wrote: [ Quote: - Mosques in the U.S. are teaching hate from pamphlets sent by Saudi Arabia.. some of these pamphlets teach that Muslims should oppose Zionists and Infidels at every opportunity. To fight them at every opportunity, to reject their culture, etc... I quickly checked if there were any MSM support of this claim, and I found many major newspapers and media outlets from 2005 citing just this... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1506-2005Feb5.html

That's because these clerics view the culture as invasive on certain Muslim values. It's not a bad thing; however, it is possible to reject the dominant culture and co-exist within that culture. I think it's wrong to kill people just because they're not Muslim, and Islam agrees with me. Regarding Zionism, I think that most sheikhs proposed that Zionism should be met with countering activism, because Zionism, in my opinion, is not at all compatible with Islamic teachings. And then again, Islamism, the Muslim equal of Zionism, is not compatible with Islam either.

You are saying that teaching hatred and promoting violent opposition to opposing religious views is not a bad thing? IMO that approach is part of the problem Islam has within Western cultures; specifically that mainstream members of the religion do not denounce the hate mongers in the strongest possible terms. I haven't been inside a Christian church in decades, but I believe any Christian leader advocating violence against Muslims would be soundly denounced, as they should be. Silent acceptance of these leaders as speaking for Islam supports the conclusion that it is a religion of hatred and violence.

slitedeviance · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 1507

brian_in_idaho wrote: specifically that mainstream members of the religion do not denounce the hate mongers in the strongest possible terms.

Quote: The leader of Australia's largest Islamic organisation has threatened to ban the cleric from teaching at Lakemba Mosque in Western Sydney.

Tom Zreika, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, which owns the mosque, said he condemned Sheikh Hilali's words.

"The board [of the LMA] has unlimited powers in respect of his teachings in the mosque. We can do anything that's required to prevent him from teaching in our mosque. If you haven't got the backing of Australia's largest and most established Islamic organisation then you are out on a limb," he is quoted as saying in The Australian.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6086374.stm