Ich bin ein Mussulman

Dost-mitter # 96

so you are a also a Mullah and a hypocrite ?

re: the other reason for this war
I agree with post #96. Living in US, one has to be careful how one reacts. I get the feeling Uncle Sam is watching all of us.
I had given my first reason for this war viz oil politics.
The other reason that comes to my untrained (politically) mind is: the massive reconstruction effort that will follow the conquest of Iraq. Most of the work will go to US companies, which will benefit Corporate America immensely. War itself has benefitted the factories churning out all those equipments for the war. Believe it or not, US will come out of recession at the end of all this!
Sridhar

tahmed32#94
I am not impressed.
The U.S might have inspired a lot of people with its War of Independence but it has long since lost that zeal. Since WWII, its policy towards dictators can best be summarised as ``He may be a bastard but he is our bastard``. This was the policy that led to the removal of Mossadaq of Iran and bringing in the Shah or the removal of the democratic govts. in places like Chile to bring in a dictator; the latest example being Venezuela last year. Saddam and Osama bin Laden were fine fellows as long as they were serving American interests and became monsters when they turned against their mentors. No sir, the U.S is probably the most morally bankrupt country today whose actions are opposed by the public opinion in every country in the world except in Israel.
As far as the middle east, I dont see how the US aggression will solve that problem. If the Americans do succeed in establishing a true democracy in Iraq, its govt. cannot be pro-Israel as long as the Arab street is against Israel; for that they will need puppets like Mobarak or the King of Jordan who can afford to ignore the wishes of their own people.
As far the parliamentary traditions in the U.K, I had always thought that Magna Carta preceded the U.S revolution by a few centuries.

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[...Perhaps Baghdad will fare well...]

Nothing of the sort will happen. Because ... Irak ist ein islamischer Staat.

That is where all western problems begin.

dost mittar #92 You ask ``Since when have Americans started supporting democracies abroad?``
Since the late morning of July 14 1789, when the French peasants stormed the Bastille prison. This revolution was inspired by the US Revolution, which showed that the King`s men could indeed be beaten, and the ideals of a democratic society was indeed not just a idealistic vision. The shot fired by the embattled farmers in Massachussetts was heard around the world and in Paris - I am getting rhetorical here ;-) And the French recognized this by gifting the Statue of Liberty to the US.

When the Cold War started, this was (quite correctly, in my view) seen as an existential struggle of democracy vs. socialist totalitarianism, no different from the struggle of democracies vs. fascist totalitarianism that had just ended after six years and tens of millions of deaths. And indeed in the early 1950`s there was a debate within the US government between those who thought the US should as a strategy (``real politic``) rely upon one man rule in third world countries or as a matter of principle refuse to do business with them. In retrospect, I would say that the US should have stuck with its principles (thus sparing the third world with tin pot dictators, and indeed the rise to prominence of the military generals in Pakistan can be traced to that policy).
After 9/11, the Bush administration quite rightly (imho) regards the fight against terrorism to be an existential struggle at par with the struggle against nazism and communism. Bush argues that in case of Iraq the goal is to transform it into a modern democracy along with other countries in the middle east, thus easing tensions with Israel and putting an end once and for all to the dogfight that has been going on between the Arabs and Israelis. I say that he deserves a chance to prove this - after 50 years of unrelenting bitterness between arabs and israelis, I think it is time someone came in and put an end to this mess.

As for Canada: that country learnt its democracy from the US the same way UK did: from the example provided by the American Revolution. Recall that at the time of the American Revolution, the Loyalists (i.e. those colonial settlers who remained loyal to mad King George even after the start of the American Revolution) marched out of the US and into Canada, where God was still in heaven and the King was still on his throne. It took the descendants of these early Canadians a few generations to figure it out after seeing what was going on south of the border, but finally they got it: there is no such thing as the Divine Right of Kings. Mother England finally figured this out too, and the parliament kept chipping away at the King`s authority throughout the 19th century, until all that is left of the King and Queen are some fancy costumes and some fancy homes (in return for which they entertain the Brits with their sexual escapades).
Sorry to have to break all this to you. ;-)

tahmed#87:
Since when have Americans started supporting democracies abroad? You know the history of the US support of dictators too well for me to enlighten you on the subject. If they want to remove dictators, wouldn`t it a good point to start with their allies - the kings of Saudi Arabia, Jordan or the military dictators in places like Algeria and Pakistan. I think you should stop taking a moralistic support of the US invasion of Iraq and support it, instead, on the basis of realpolitik, as Stuka does. I would oppose it even on those grounds, but that is a different matter.
And Canada didn`t learn its democracy from the U.S. The last time I checked, we had a Prime Minister and a Governor General, not a President, a Parliament and elected Ministers and not an unelected cabinet as in the U.S.

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Romair#79:
A very lucid post. While I agree with you fully on this, my wish now is that the Iraqis really start dancing in the street, cut their misery and wait for their turn to use Guerrila tactics to drive them out later on. The war-mongers in the Bush administration have learnt their lesson from Vietnam and will use Amrica`s full might to rain death and destruction on Iraqis until they remove Saddam from power.

So what does it mean to be a Muslim?? What ought it mean??

Is it culture? Geography? Skin color? Does it mean opposition to this war? After many months away, Chowk interlocutors are fixed on many of the same positions; the Indian brigade reflecting their internal struggle over their identity, project, on the non-Indian and Muslim. The Muslim Pakistanis, fists clenched, mouthing obscene worn out anti-colonial, anti-imperial rhetoric. Both too insecure to live up to their rhetoric.

Americans will not be the same after the Iraq experience, they will becom Muslimized and Middle Easternized, even more than they are today. Gone will the certainties that so many Americans do not recognize as bliss, in fact, bliss itself will come to contain and project a different content.

The much vaunted ``Clash of Civilizations`` will have been generally negated and instead be ``Clash of sub-cultures``.

Well, my pontification and predictions aside, curiously attractive, tantalizing,pregant, ``what does it mean to be a Muslim`` cannot but turn from a whisper to a scream. If this is furthered by the ``project``, histories will not fail to recognize this pivotal moment in the destiny of the US and of the once Muslim heart land. Bring it on, already!!

#71 by Urstruly on March 28, 2003 9:56am PT

Making stupid chavunistic posts cannot replace logic and reasoning

Romair #79 Bush says that after the war is over, the US (along with UK)will focus on introducing democracy in Iraq. The question then is: do you think democracy is a good idea? If your answer is ``no``, then clearly you and I are on opposite sides.
If you answer is ``yes``, then the next question is: Can Bush be trusted to make a reasonable effort at doing what he says he will for the Iraqis? If your answer is ``no``, then ponder this: YOU trusted the US enough to come an live here (I wont get into the reasons you left). If you can trust your life and the life and future of your children with the US, why do you find it so hard to trust the elected President of the US when he says that aims to introduce democracy in Iraq and has no intention of turning it into a colony?
Also, examine the track record of the US, and its partner UK: Japan made a historic turn from one-man rule (the emperor, and sometimes the shogun) to democracy AFTER MacArthur took over. Same for Germany after WWII, where it was Adeneur and others who admired the US introduced democracy the first time ever (except for the brief and unsuccessful Weimar government) in Germany. And finally, look at the Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire, India. The Brits left India a democratic country with secular principles.
(And I need not get into what our generals left behind after the few years of control they had over Afghanistan: Mullah Omar, who converted women doctors and teachers into street beggars, applied mortar shells to irreplaceable Buddha statues.

So, as you sit before your fireside in the Canadian Northwest, reflect upon this. Reflect also upon where Canada got its democratic traditions (hint: it wasnt the eskimos).

A letter from Guantanamo Bay



I recall the recent BBC Urdu Service coverage of a letter received by the families of two young men in Pakistan through the courtesy of International Red Cross Society. The letter came from two prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba after two years of their absence from home.

///There is one more place where the TNT is in operation, out come of a belief that muslims cannot live in peace with other religions, and that is guantanamo bay. It is like another pakistan, and mushy is planning to visit that place to memet with the pakistanis. Pak ambassador has visited the place several times to look afetr the interests of the pakistanis.

Pakistanis should be proiud, at least one place pakistanis are not harassed about visa violations.

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dullabhatti #74

There is no doubt that Iraqis who are dying are being bombed and killed by Saddam Hussain himself. Americans have nothing to gain by killing Iraqi civilians while Saddam Hussain gains everything by killing as many of them as he can. With al jazeera working for him with no regard for any professional ethics, this is a great propaganda coup.

Does anyone know what happened to the human shields who had travelled with fanfare from the West. Are they all dead yet?

rsridhar
Americans do not yet fully understand the effect of religious beliefs. Their model of man is that of a rational person. The effect of religious beliefs has become secondary. For example, very few educated Christians still claim to believe in the Bible because it has `modern scientific principles embedded in it` or because its `predictions are coming true.` Such beliefs among the so-called educated people about their religious books are still commonplace in many other societies.

People from different societies have very different motivations. When all this rallying against war subsides, Americans will learn about these things slowly.