Why do some people think all riot critics support the Iraq War?

[ButterflyBlood]

That's the only argument I'm seeing here against people being critical of the Muslim violence over those cartoons. The Iraq War killed more people, Bush did worse, blah blah blah.

This would be a valid point if you were arguing with Freepers, but that's not the case. It's pretty asinine to assume that one can't be outraged by the reaction to some silly cartoons AND oppose the Iraq War as well, or that criticism of such behavior means one must be a war supporter.

Sorry, I have no reason to be considered a hypocrite. I never supported the invasion, I never supported the moron or his misAndmistration that launched it, and I voted against that same moron a year ago. I oppose all senseless violence, be it invading Iraq, or rioting over some silly drawings. That sounds more consistant than hypocritical to me.

[northzax]

1. because we have the same fundamentalist orthodoxy as the other guys

deviation from orthodoxy, as determined by someone, makes you a heretic. If you don't agree with me on one thing, you must not agree with me on everything, it makes you the enemy and your postions must be destroyed.

heck, I don't consider it a complete week on DU unless I've been called a Freeper at least twice. Irregardless of the fact that I spend my life working for environmental justice, having one opinion that varies from the communal orthodoxy brands me. it's really the worst feature of message boards like this.

[ButterflyBlood]

2. a problem the left has never gotten over

It started in the Spanish Civil War with the communist who would frag anyone they didn't consider ideologically pure enough. Then came the Naderites. Still happening now I see. When wil we learn?

[MakeItSo]

3. The problem is, you're being played, as are the Muslims who are rioting

I don't wish to form opinions based on what is clearly deliberate misinformation.

The cartoons published in the Danish newspaper MONTHS ago resulted in nary a whisper let alone a flag burning from Muslims.

A controversial Immam FAKED a bunch of cartoons that were never even in the paper and were egregiously MORE offensive than the published newspaper cartoons, and then went on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East, dropping off pamphlets that contained these FAKE cartoons as he went along. One of these faked cartoons portrayed Muhammad with a pig snout, another as a pedophile demon and another has a praying Muslim being raped by a dog, according to the weblog Gateway Pundit.


THESE WERE NEVER PUBLISHED ANYWHERE, YET THE IMMAN PRESENTED THEM AS IF THEY WERE. THIS IS CALLED DISINFORMATION.

I hope you realize that there are numerous instances of alleged "radical Muslims" cooperating with and acting as agents of intelligence services. Here is just one example:

MI5 'left al-Qa'ida informant to rot in Guantanamo Bay'

The British security service has been accused of abandoning a former operative in Guantanamo Bay after they recruited him as a go- between with the Islamist radical Abu Qatada.
In new revelations, Bisher al-Rawi, a British resident held at the American prison in Cuba, says that MI5 persuaded him to become their unpaid intermediary with the alleged al-Qa'ida leader by promising they would help him if he ran into trouble.

He was recruited by MI5 weeks after 11 September as a neutral intermediary with Abu Qatada, who allegedly had links with MI5 despite being accused of being al-Qa'ida's 'spiritual leader' and Osama bin Laden's 'ambassador' in Europe.

* MI5 always knew where Abu Qatada was hiding after he fled his home in west London hours before new powers to detain suspects without charge came into force in December 2001. He lived at Elephant & Castle, close to MI5's headquarters, for nine months before being arrested.

* Throughout this time, Mr al-Rawi had 'numerous' meetings with three MI5 agents - 'Alex', 'Matthew' and 'Martin' - in hotels and bars in London, passingmessages between them and Abu Qatada.


http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=11094&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported

[ButterflyBlood]

4. Interesting and valid information

But it still hardly means anyone critical of the Muslim violence is an Iraq war supporter, which you have implied.

[MakeItSo]

5. Absolutely not, I have implied no such thing

My *simple* point is that burning an embassy and invading a sovereign nation without provocation are both destructive actions but ARE NOT IN ANY WAY EQUIVALENT in scope or scale.

[ButterflyBlood]

6. And who on DU said so?

I've never seen anyone here make such a claim.

[MakeItSo]

7. You need to read the thread by formerrepublican a little more closely

He said it over and over again.

[FormerRepublican]

11. She said it.

And I never said I supported the Iraq war, which I don't. Is that clear enough for you?

[MakeItSo]

14. Formerepublican clearly deemed scale and scope of violence irrelevant

When reaching moral and ethical conclusions. (You need to read the thread more closely before piping in, FR)

Me: Is the Hiroshima bomb blast analogous to a mugging in Central Park in terms of the net effect on humanity, in your humble opinion?

Formerrepublican: It is to the people affected by the violence. How do you know what effect the person who was mugged in Central Park has on the world in the long run? What do we really know about all the links there are between people over the course of history? My parents were into geneology, and what I noticed is that there are certain people who seem to be parentage for a LOT of people, including those who have a vast impact on the world. Even the death of one person matters. Their actions matter, and we can't calculate the effects of a violent act on the world because we can't comprehend the ripples it creates in the world forever after the fact. I have PTSD, so I know how a violent act can change the world forever.

[FormerRepublican]

16. My point, which you missed, is that even one life is precious and valuable

To say that the death of one person has no meaning to the world as a whole is not acceptable to me. How can we compare human death and say one is acceptable and the other is not? How can we compare the death of one individual in New York with the deaths of many individuals in Japan, and say the death of the one is unimportant compared to the death of many?

Can one judge life? How do we know what value that life has?

That was my point. We can't make that judgement because we DON'T KNOW.

Would the effect on the world be minimal if that one person who died in New York would have produced 100 Einsteins in subsequent generations if that person had lived? 100 Mozarts? Or subsequently been the one person who could bring all countries of the world together for global peace? What if one of those who were killed in Japan were the forefather of another Hitler? Would you still compare the two events in the same way? What can we know about what a human life means in the grand scheme of things? If we can't know, how can we weigh them and say this one is important and that one isn't? How can we compare them at all? They are ALL catastrophic deaths.

[MakeItSo]

17. you keep putting false statements in peoples' mouths, "both" of you

Who in fuck's sake said "the death of one person has no meaning to the world as a whole"??? Christ on an f-ing crutch.

[FormerRepublican]

20. You're again missing the point.

How do we assess value for a human life? Do you have some crystal ball that tells you every effect a human will have on the future world so you can make some kind of informed judgement? My whole point is there is NO FREAKING WAY we can rationally decide that this person is more valuable than that person, or that the death of this person isn't as important as the death of those 5000 people over there. How can we, without having some kind of god like power, see the entirety of human existance from that point on and know every change that occurs because of a death? Or even an act of violence? How can we possibly make any kind of judgement about it?

[MakeItSo]

8. Can you please define the Muslim "violence" that so troubles you?

Is burning a flag violent? Is getting shot and killed by a cop violent? What so troubles your compassionate soul? Please post links to all news stories that you find that report physical violence against non-Muslims resulting in injury or death by Muslims as a reaction to the faked cartoon reproductions of Mohammad getting fucked up the ass by a dog, etc.

[ButterflyBlood]

9. Torching embassies for starters

Including that of one country that had nothing to do with the cartoons (plus many more thanhave followed)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4681294.stm

Then we can also look at the violence in Lebanon where protestors vandalized a Christian church and ravaged a Christian neighborhood: http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=171724616&p=y7y7z53zz

Plenty more examples.

And yes, I'm aware the Iraq war has killed far more people and caused much more damage. But I didn't support the war, so I'm hardly a hypocrite.

[MakeItSo]

10. I repeat: show me ONE EXAMPLE of physical violence by protesters

ALL REPORTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST PEOPLE (including the stories you link to) involve police violence against protesters.

"The embassy was closed, and no diplomats were reported to have been injured in either attack."

[FormerRepublican]

12. Here's a link from the Arab press:

"Afghan police fired at a crowd trying to storm a US military base in the town of Qalat, in southern Zabul province. The latest deaths brought the total number of Afghans killed in protests this week to 10.

In Tehran, demonstrators pelted the British Embassy with stones, shouting “Death to Britain” and “We are willing to sacrifice our lives for the Prophet Muhammad.”"

and

"In the Palestinian city of Hebron, international monitors briefly withdrew after Palestinians attacked their headquarters in protest at the cartoons."

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=77513&d=9&m=2&y=2006

Another description from the Arab press:

"The fallout from the Danish cartoons gets worse: 11 demonstrators now dead in Afghanistan and Norwegian soldiers there attacked, an attack on an international observers’ mission in Hebron, Bangladeshi demonstrators trying to attack the Italian Embassy in Dhaka. The editor of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that started it all, has a lot on his conscience. The situation is dangerously out of control. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has little credibility in the Muslim world but we can agree with him on one thing — that this is now a “global crisis”."

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=77536&d=9&m=2&y=2006

OK as an example?

[MakeItSo]

13. You still haven't shown a SINGLE INSTANCE of a protestor killing or

injuring ANYONE. These people are royally pissed, it's true. But read what you posted. "Norwegian soldiers" were "attacked" What does that mean, exactly? That's the closest you've come but it says nothing about what actually resulted in terms of death or injury.

[FormerRepublican]

18. You don't like the Norwegian example, so I'll echo someone else's post:

"In Bagram district, a peaceful protest in the morning turned violent when around 300 "bandits and gangsters" tried to enter the US base, local police chief Mawlana Sayed Khel told the BBC.

A shoot-out with police left two protesters dead, and six police officers injured, he said."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4684652.stm

Thank you, Behind the Aegis, for finding the above example.

[Behind the Aegis]

19. You're welcome...

...you'll love the response you may get. :)

:toast:

[Behind the Aegis]

21. Also, this...

<snip>

Lebanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, but a group managed to make its way to the building, breaking windows and setting it on fire. The fire quickly spread through the building, and witnesses said they saw people jumping out of windows to escape the flames. Reuters reported that one person had died. A Dutch news photographer at the scene was beaten when several demonstrators mistook him for being Danish.

<snip>

source

[MakeItSo]

15. Who are these "some people"? Is it really the "only argument"

you see "here"? If so you should get your eyesight checked. I know that I PERSONALLY have made no such assertions, and in fact haven't seen anyone ELSE make the assertions that you claim either.