Cowardly, nihilistic f☆☮☎trumpets murder journalists

emax100 · Jan 7, 2015

Lyv said:
When a Christian bombs an abortion clinic or Christians in Uganda try to pass laws to kill gay people, I hear a lot of "that's not all of us" and "they aren't real Christians," but I don't hear as many (or any, really) calls for Christians to fight those laws or prevent those clinic bombers or shooters.

Not really comparable since we already have laws against murder of any kind that readily cover abortion bombings, which indeed are rare enough that inventing a whole new set of laws just to address them is impractical. Our murder and property destruction laws are plenty to cover it. As for Uganda, well Christians here are limited in what they can do to prevent such killings of gays just like they are limited in preventing GLBT murders Islamic or Communist nations, where it is often exponentially worse, or for that matter in the other 37 African nations that have laws in the books making it illegal to be gay. At least, they remain limited in what they can do unless they are ok with being accused of Western cultural imperialism against Third World nations.

For reference, here's a map on systematic oppression of GLBTs around the world; try not to get too depressed looking at it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...where-homosexuality-may-be-punished-by-death/

Amadan · Jan 7, 2015

Zoombie said:
Personally, I always thought it was more a facet of history and politics that leads to a lot of Muslim terrorists.

I don't think there is anything inherent in Islam that makes it more likely to produce terrorists than any other religion.

That said, the current culture is what it is.

If you had the same stuff that happened to the Middle East over the past century happen to the United States, you'd get a bunch of home grown Christian terrorists.

So, I think that an outreach program within Islam to curb extremism would be good...what would be better would be trying to correct what creates terrorists in the first place: Inequality, colonialism, and all that rot.

There are lots of former colonies and very unequal countries that are not steadily churning out terrorists. So blaming it all on historic injustice does not fly, I don't think.

Lyv said:
When a Christian bombs an abortion clinic or Christians in Uganda try to pass laws to kill gay people, I hear a lot of "that's not all of us" and "they aren't real Christians," but I don't hear as many (or any, really) calls for Christians to fight those laws or prevent those clinic bombers or shooters.

If Christians were blowing up abortion clinics on a regular basis and being exorted to do so by prominent Christian leaders, and Uganda was representative of a substiantial number of Christian countries, there would be.

It's not that equivalent sentiments don't exist, but it is a matter of scale.

Lyv · Jan 7, 2015

emax100 said:
Not really comparable since we already have laws against murder of any kind that readily cover abortion bombings, which indeed are rare enough that inventing a whole new set of laws just to address them is impractical.

We aren't only talking about laws. We are talking about condemnation, efforts to stop the behavior, yada yada.

milkweed · Jan 7, 2015

Perks said:
I'll just be honest, cobbled up curses like "fucktrumpet" and "twatwaffle" that pop up on AW in serious conversations don't really convey outrage to me. They're just out of place, like a clown horn at a funeral.

Depends on the funeral! My mother would have loved clown horns at her funeral!!!

ETA the cobbled up curses used here are not near strong enough in my opinion, but saying what I really think about these terrorists would probably get me banned from here so I'll keep those opinions to myself.

Devil Ledbetter · Jan 7, 2015

Captcha said:
But peaceful Muslims are not to blame for violent assholes who share the name of their religion any more than peaceful Christians are to blame when a Christian sub-group goes off the rails.

I don't believe I either said or implied that they were to blame. I only asked what, if anything, any of them were doing to fight Muslim terrorism.

A few people provided examples. I didn't find them impressive or particularly heartening, but it's certainly better than nothing. My own Google search coughed up Muslims Against Terrorism, so that's something.

Captcha said:
If any peaceful Muslims organize and push back against this bullshit, fantastic, I'm grateful to them, and it makes me happy. But it's not their fucking JOB. They don't need to prove themselves to the larger world by going above and beyond what other peaceful people are expected to do. They don't need to earn the right to practice their religion and live in their culture any more than the rest of us do.

Well, I didn't say or imply it was their JOB or that they needed to prove themselves to the larger world by doing so before they had any right to their beliefs.

I just think it's really odd that Muslims on the whole, while not exactly mum on the topic, are not all that visible in doing much about it. Every time there is an event like this, we're scolded and reminded with "Not ALL Muslims!" and "It's a peaceful religion!"

When this level of violence is associated with a belief system, it's hard to accept that the belief system itself isn't somehow fomenting that for at least some of its believers. Especially when the beliefs systems non-violent believers are largely silent on the subject.

Someone brought Christian terrorism up. Yes, we have seen that in the US (Timothy McVeigh, or the creep who murdered George Tiller to name a couple). We didn't really need a coalition of Christians to gather and decry those events though, because the US Government* stepped in and addressed the Christian perpetrators with murder charges, trials, prison time and so on. Is the equivalent going on at a government level with Islamists? What is their version of the FBI or the CIA or the ATF going after these murderous extremists? I'm not saying there isn't one, but if their is, I haven't found it.

I'm confident I could give plenty of examples of Christian groups protesting the ugliness perpetrated by Westboro Baptist Church, and as nasty as those folks are they haven't committed any mass slaughters that I'm aware of. Yet.

*A government run at the top end almost entirely by self-proclaimed bible believers, mostly of Christian faith.

robeiae · Jan 7, 2015

Devil Ledbetter said:
Well, I didn't say or imply it was their JOB or that they needed to prove themselves to the larger world by doing so before they had any right to their beliefs.

You just did:

I only asked what, if anything, any of them were doing to fight Muslim terrorism.

A few people provided examples. I didn't find them impressive or particularly heartening, but it's certainly better than nothing.

That is very much implying that they need to "prove themselves," since you're passing judgment and declaring that the efforts are neither impressive nor heartening.

raburrell · Jan 7, 2015

Prayers and thoughts with the people of Paris, and especially to the family of those killed. It was a cowardly offense against decency and free speech. The pictures that are coming out of places like Trafalgar Square are amazing.

On a more political note here, I agree with Lyv and others here. This article sums up a lot of my feelings on the plague of extremism in Europe.

two passages that felt particularly worth pointing out:

he attack on Charlie Hebdo will further entrench the terms of a confused European debate about Muslim immigrants—one in which both the “accusers” and the “defenders” of Islam are painting in dangerously broad brushstrokes. While the European far right points to Islamic terrorism to exclude and malign all Muslims, the European left responds by refusing to recognize how fundamental a challenge Islamic terrorism represents (or that it is inspired by Islam at all). Both sides fail to realize that two seemingly opposite sentiments can stand side by side: the conviction that Muslims should become full and equal members of European democracies and the unabashed determination to defend those democracies against Islamic fundamentalism.

and

To court mainstream support, the far right has cleverly repackaged its disdain for immigrants and religious minorities as a defense of liberal values like gender equality and freedom of speech. This allows the far right across Europe to claim that its real problem with “those Turks” (or “those Algerians” or “those Bangladeshis”) is not that they look different or worship another God; it is that they are enemies of the universal values that a much wider portion of Europe holds dear.

This tack is doubly disingenuous. It is disingenuous because it invokes violent extremists to tar the vast majority of peaceful Muslims with the same calumnious brush. And it is disingenuous because its supposed love of liberal values is but a fig leaf.

Europe has a big problem at the moment, and it seems, very little will to address it honestly. Changes need to be made.

Lyv · Jan 7, 2015

Devil Ledbetter said:
Especially when the beliefs systems non-violent believers are largely silent on the subject.

That's not actually true. I wanted to believe that when you asked for links, you asked in good faith. But it was just to make a point, wasn't it?

I'm done.

kuwisdelu · Jan 7, 2015

Captcha said:
This is an ugly, ugly event. The people who did it are ugly, ugly people.

But peaceful Muslims are not to blame for violent assholes who share the name of their religion any more than peaceful Christians are to blame when a Christian sub-group goes off the rails.

If any peaceful Muslims organize and push back against this bullshit, fantastic, I'm grateful to them, and it makes me happy. But it's not their fucking JOB. They don't need to prove themselves to the larger world by going above and beyond what other peaceful people are expected to do. They don't need to earn the right to practice their religion and live in their culture any more than the rest of us do.

Wanted to say something like this, but you said it better than I could.

I'd like to add that it's not an easy thing. It can mean opening yourself up to attack, and being viewed as a traitor.

If you're trying to reach people at risk of buying jihadist rhetoric and you push too hard, you might push them right into becoming a terrorist.

Flicka · Jan 7, 2015

Too much of what has been said here is based on a very worrying "we and them" mentality that creates a false dichotomy between "us" and all Muslims.

Amadan said:
Now let's see them conduct an extensive outreach program, a "Stop extremism" PR campaign within the Muslim community, more action in countries where terrorists come from, more repudiation of "Death to Israel" sentiments, repudiation of demands for Sharia law even in non-Muslim countries, acknowledgment of the supremacy of secular authorities, public statements in support of the right to draw insulting cartoons of Mohammad, assistance to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in tracking down terrorists and collaborators, etc.

I've certainly heard imams here say these things. Unfortunately, it isn't convincing the extremists any more than our archbishop saying that homosexual and heterosexual relations are equal will convince Phelps' gang to change their minds.

Devil Ledbetter said:
Someone brought Christian terrorism up. Yes, we have seen that in the US (Timothy McVeigh, or the creep who murdered George Tiller to name a couple). We didn't really need a coalition of Christians to gather and decry those events though, because the US Government* stepped in and addressed the Christian perpetrators with murder charges, trials, prison time and so on. Is the equivalent going on at a government level with Islamists? What is their version of the FBI or the CIA or the ATF going after these murderous extremists? I'm not saying there isn't one, but if their is, I haven't found it.

Their? Islam isn't a country so I really don't think such a thing is possible. In the case of the American Muslims "their" FBI and CIA is hopefully FBI and CIA. In the case of the Swedish Muslims, their "CIA and FBI" is SÄPO and MUST. In the case of the French Muslims, it's probably the French security police and French military intelligence though I am woefully ignorant of the organisation of French intelligence/police.

Muslims are Americans and Swedes and French too. Let us not forget that.

Captcha said:
I'm with Lyv.

This is an ugly, ugly event. The people who did it are ugly, ugly people.

But peaceful Muslims are not to blame for violent assholes who share the name of their religion any more than peaceful Christians are to blame when a Christian sub-group goes off the rails.

If any peaceful Muslims organize and push back against this bullshit, fantastic, I'm grateful to them, and it makes me happy. But it's not their fucking JOB. They don't need to prove themselves to the larger world by going above and beyond what other peaceful people are expected to do. They don't need to earn the right to practice their religion and live in their culture any more than the rest of us do.

Well said.

I think the organisation of this attack is presumably Al Qaida in Yemen (at least that was claimed by the perpetrators, I think), and your average Muslim here really can't do anymore about them than I can about the Westboro Baptist Church so it is placing a pretty large onus on them if you are going to expect them to know what to do to prevent things like this. It's not like there's a huge Muslim master hive mind. They are just as divided as we are.

I would also like to point out that I have seen a lot of Muslims today come forward in social media to express their fury and disgust over this. Beyond that, there isn't really that much an average Muslim not involved with any extremist groups can do, no matter how much they would wish to.

It's depressing but I don't think anyone knows what to do. What I do know, however, is that if this becomes Muslims vs. the western world, we're all screwed. It needs to be all of us good people together against the evil people. "They" can't stop this; we must all work together.

benbradley · Jan 7, 2015

The three suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack have been identified, Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman told CNN on Wednesday. Two of the suspects are brothers, he said.

Now to see what the kerfuffle in this thread is about...

Devil Ledbetter · Jan 7, 2015

Muslims constitute 23% of the world's population, or 1.6 billion people.

This can be looked at two equally valid ways:

1. The number of Muslim terrorists constitute a tiny percentage of Muslims.

2. The vast majority of Muslims are silent about terrorism.

And no, I'm still not saying they have to fight terrorism in order to have some right to practice their faith. I'm just saying the silence is fucking deafening.

kuwisdelu · Jan 7, 2015

Devil Ledbetter said:
And no, I'm still not saying they have to fight terrorism in order to have some right to practice their faith. I'm just saying the silence is fucking deafening.

I don't know what you want them to do.

The vast majority of the human population is silent about most of the atrocities in the world.

Most of the time it's just about getting on with our own lives.

Muslims are no different.

Amadan · Jan 7, 2015

I don't blame individual Muslims for the actions of extremists.

I do think it's being willfully blind to ignore the disproportionate number of violent extremists among Muslims, and the degree to which they find sympathy even among those Muslims who do not commit violence themselves.

Offering "But Uganda! And Fred Phelps!" when it's pointed out that other religions do not have this problem with extremism and integrating peacefully with secular states is a false equivalency.

What the solution is is hard to say, but one is that we have to acknowledge that extremist ideology is a pervasive problem in Muslim communities worldwide, and rooting it out is indeed going to require cooperation and effort from those Muslim communities.

robeiae · Jan 7, 2015

Devil Ledbetter said:
Muslims constitute 23% of the world's population, or 1.6 billion people.

This can be looked at two equally valid ways:

1. The number of Muslim terrorists constitute a tiny percentage of Muslims.

2. The vast majority of Muslims are silent about terrorism.

3. The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

But all of those "equally valid ways" ignores something: not everyone who claims to be a Muslim understands it to mean the same thing. Ditto for everyone who claims to be a Christian. Or a Jew. Or a host of other things, some of them having nothing to do with religion.

Consider the WBC crowd. They're a bunch of hate-spewing whackos, imo. And frankly, I pretty much ignore them as a matter of course. There is no onus on me to "do something about them" simply because I say I'm a Christian, much less is there any onus on Christians in Argentina or in Australia to "take a stand" against the WBC.

Now, if I'm an active member of the WBC, that's a different story. If I'm just paying my dues and going to services but not participating in the hate-fests, one could fairly criticize me for being silent, could say I was complicit even. Because I'm an identifiable member of an identifiable and limited group.

But the guy who owns the gas station down the street from me--who happens to be a Muslim--isn't a member of any radical Muslim terrorist group as far as I know and I think it ridiculous to suppose he has to do something about such groups. He's living his life, taking care of his family, and what he needs to do--imo--is obey the laws and try to do the right thing in his daily life, nothing more.

kuwisdelu · Jan 7, 2015

Amadan said:
What the solution is is hard to say, but one is that we have to acknowledge that extremist ideology is a pervasive problem in Muslim communities worldwide, and rooting it out is indeed going to require cooperation and effort from those Muslim communities.

I agree, but if I were a Muslim, I wouldn't want to cooperate with someone blaming me for terrorism either.

Amadan · Jan 7, 2015

kuwisdelu said:
I agree, but if I were a Muslim, I wouldn't want to cooperate with someone blaming me for terrorism either.

Of course we should be careful not to indiscriminately blame all Muslims for terrorism, because that's both stupid and wrong.

That said, at a certain point, "We're not going to cooperate with you until you're nicer to us and stop getting so upset that there are terrorists among us" becomes a vicious circle in which the people with terrorists among them are going to come out the losers.

kuwisdelu · Jan 7, 2015

Amadan said:
That said, at a certain point, "We're not going to cooperate with you until you're nicer to us and stop getting so upset that there are terrorists among us" becomes a vicious circle in which the people with terrorists among them are going to come out the losers.

Even that language — "among" — seems loaded to me. As if every Muslim knows a terrorist or two.

TheCuriousOne · Jan 7, 2015

I've been following the discussion on here, and there's something I don't quite get. There's an appeal here to see the reactions of Muslim people. Well, there are Muslim people who voice their condemnation of the act. They themselves get support from people from all walks of life, as well as messages of hatred. They could have said nothing. Then someone quotes an Imam condemning the attack. And this is perceived as being "dutiful", he's being put down as if he had to say that and didn't mean it. Muslims are doomed either way. They either say nothing and get blamed for it, or say something and, well, somehow it doesn't really count. Any and every single voice raised against extremism is a voice.

I'm working with a new client, a team of French people who are fighting on the international level to ensure that people are educated about Islam and the Muslim world. One thing is clear. There are many deviations from the actual teachings of Islam. Most people's preconceptions of Islam will probably be based on those deviations, and be wrong, and probably dangerous in that they feed intolerance. We get told things. We get shown things. But are they really representative? Do we keep on believing what the media tell us? From the texts they asked me to translate, there ARE Muslim people who fight for peace, who fight for Islam as a progressive, moderate and fair religion, and who condemn extremism. Thing is, despite following the news and being aware more or less of the major things that are going on in the world, I had never heard of them. Isis and Al Qaeda and goodness knows what other evil thing gets the spotlight. And boy don't they revel in it. And talking about the big evils brings audience more so than the more positive stuff, so it's not going to change.

Tonight, I just want to feel pain for my country. And feel love for the good people, and hatred towards the bad ones. Whatever their creed, it's what's in their heart that matters.

Captcha · Jan 7, 2015

kuwisdelu said:
Even that language — "among" — seems loaded to me. As if every Muslim knows a terrorist or two.

And as if Muslims are a unified whole.

I mean, wasn't there a big fear a while ago about sleeper terrorists, living undercover and waiting to strike? So that would mean there were terrorists among US (the innocent Westerners) as well, right? What are OUR obligations to stop terrorism?

And where are these examples of peaceful Muslims refusing to cooperate with anti-terrorist initiatives, Amadan? What kind of cooperation are you looking for? Are they supposed to be able to solve a problem every Western government has been stuck on for a couple decades?

Devil Ledbetter · Jan 7, 2015

TheCuriousOne said:
I've been following the discussion on here, and there's something I don't quite get. There's an appeal here to see the reactions of Muslim people. Well, there are Muslim people who voice their condemnation of the act. They themselves get support from people from all walks of life, as well as messages of hatred. They could have said nothing. Then someone quotes an Imam condemning the attack. And this is perceived as being "dutiful", he's being put down as if he had to say that and didn't mean it. Muslims are doomed either way. They either say nothing and get blamed for it, or say something and, well, somehow it doesn't really count. Any and every single voice raised against extremism is a voice.

I'm working with a new client, a team of French people who are fighting on the international level to ensure that people are educated about Islam and the Muslim world. One thing is clear. There are many deviations from the actual teachings of Islam. Most people's preconceptions of Islam will probably be based on those deviations, and be wrong, and probably dangerous in that they feed intolerance. We get told things. We get shown things. But are they really representative? Do we keep on believing what the media tell us? From the texts they asked me to translate, there ARE Muslim people who fight for peace, who fight for Islam as a progressive, moderate and fair religion, and who condemn extremism. Thing is, despite following the news and being aware more or less of the major things that are going on in the world, I had never heard of them. Isis and Al Qaeda and goodness knows what other evil thing gets the spotlight. And boy don't they revel in it. And talking about the big evils brings audience more so than the more positive stuff, so it's not going to change.

Tonight, I just want to feel pain for my country. And feel love for the good people, and hatred towards the bad ones. Whatever their creed, it's what's in their heart that matters.

You make some really thoughtful points here. Thank you.

To address some previous posters: in no way do I expect each Muslim to talk about terrorism, or even most Muslims. I just think with as many peaceful Muslims as there are, we'd hear more of their voices on the subject, just as we hear many (but not all) Christians decrying the WBC.

It could be that this is going on but there is silence in the press for some reason. It could be that I'm just not tuned to the right sources. I do not believe Muslim silence equates to agreement with terrorist actions.

Captcha · Jan 7, 2015

Flicka said:
It's depressing but I don't think anyone knows what to do. What I do know, however, is that if this becomes Muslims vs. the western world, we're all screwed. It needs to be all of us good people together against the evil people. "They" can't stop this; we must all work together.

I'm with you. If we MUST have an us against them, let's make the division along a line like that one.

benbradley · Jan 7, 2015

robeiae said:
Just because some Muslims define themselves first and foremost by their "Muslim nature," it doesn't mean other Muslims must do the same.

I think it's very unfair to say this kind of stuff. A random person who happens to be a Muslim is not responsible as a matter of course for the rise of Muslim terrorists and is under no obligation to address such things.

Devil Ledbetter said:
Muslims constitute 23% of the world's population, or 1.6 billion people.

This can be looked at two equally valid ways:

1. The number of Muslim terrorists constitute a tiny percentage of Muslims.

2. The vast majority of Muslims are silent about terrorism.

And no, I'm still not saying they have to fight terrorism in order to have some right to practice their faith. I'm just saying the silence is fucking deafening.

I wonder how many of those 1.6 billion Muslims even hear about attacks such as this.

I do know that there ARE statements from Muslims condemning violent acts by other Muslims that don't get reported in the news. About years ago I heard a speaker from this organization, and every time I've looked on the website since, there's always some violent act being condemned. This doesn't have anything about today's tragedy (I'm sure they don't update this site every day - it may be an all-volunteer organization an they have lives to live), but there's a big statement about ISIS:
http://www.isbatlanta.org/news-events

One might ask some impertinent questions about "Why don't we hear more X condemning acts of violence by other X" when X is something other than Muslim or members of some other religion.

Shall I list all my "labels" and condemn every violent act by every other person or group which shares one or more of my labels?

(If you're wondering, my labels are helpfully listed in my Twitter description)

benbradley · Jan 7, 2015

robeiae said:
3. The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

But all of those "equally valid ways" ignores something: not everyone who claims to be a Muslim understands it to mean the same thing. Ditto for everyone who claims to be a Christian. Or a Jew. Or a host of other things, some of them having nothing to do with religion.

Consider the WBC crowd. They're a bunch of hate-spewing whackos, imo. And frankly, I pretty much ignore them as a matter of course. There is no onus on me to "do something about them" simply because I say I'm a Christian, much less is there any onus on Christians in Argentina or in Australia to "take a stand" against the WBC.

Now, if I'm an active member of the WBC, that's a different story. If I'm just paying my dues and going to services but not participating in the hate-fests, one could fairly criticize me for being silent, could say I was complicit even. Because I'm an identifiable member of an identifiable and limited group.

But the guy who owns the gas station down the street from me--who happens to be a Muslim--isn't a member of any radical Muslim terrorist group as far as I know and I think it ridiculous to suppose he has to do something about such groups. He's living his life, taking care of his family, and what he needs to do--imo--is obey the laws and try to do the right thing in his daily life, nothing more.

For a Christian comparison, I don't think WBC is a good one. They're obnoxious as hell, but the (now deceased) leader's daughter is an attorney who apparently knows her stuff well enough to know what lines they can cross and what they can't with their protests. Also, I read much of their income has been from suing others who have crossed legal lines as far as trying to restrict them (which is apparently what they try to provoke others to do).

A better comparison would be Eric Rudolph, or one of the people who have shot and killed doctors who provide abortions, all in the name of Christianity.

CrastersBabies · Jan 7, 2015

(Adds f**K trumpet to list of words to use in the future...)

Cowardly, nihilistic f☆☮☎trumpets murder journalists

I meant to do that.

Abuses commas at will.

Come on you stranger, you legend,

Touch and go

Treguna Makoidees Trecorum SadisDee

I meant to do that.

Revolutionize the World

Dull Old Person

It's a doggy dog world

Come on you stranger, you legend,

Revolutionize the World

Touch and go

Revolutionize the World

Revolutionize the World

Come on you stranger, you legend,

It's a doggy dog world

It's a doggy dog world

Burninator!