@SDGundamX

Wow, where to start. Your reply to my latest comment illustrates how you (willingly or ignorantly?) continue to misconstrue the issue, building up strawman after strawman, putting words and notions in Harris' mouth and mine, while ignoring everything I post. And then you post an article that maliciously distorts the views of Harris and Hitchens, depicting them as solely intent on vilifying Islam. If that article really describes what you think than I should probably stop arguing with you and spend my time better, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

Yes, I read the book you linked, or at least what the preview offered, which was more than enough to show that it does not go against anything Harris or I argue, only against the strawmen you prop up. A few comments on the book nonetheless:

The introduction (the one not by the book's author) is full of wishy-washy 'everything-and-its-contraire' platitudes, and ironically refers to Muslims as a unified whole, which is exactly what you accuse H. and I of... that's a good start; it's okay to make sweeping generalizations if they're positive? But even this text recognises that the secular influence of the "West" upon Muslim modernists forces them away from the core tenets of Islam and it's sacred text, which then sees the rise of fundamentalist backlash. And then there's this tidbit in the conclusion:

"Muslims, we often forget, do not always act as Muslims or members of a religious community; rather, they respond to economic, social and political needs that may direct conduct more than ideological signposts do."

Well hello captain Obvious! Either he's trying to address Christian right white trash, in which case he should use a bilboard instead of a book (I kid, I kid), or he takes his projected audience for fools. Or maybe he's building up to the sort of strawmen you seem so fond of attacking.

Now to the actual book: the author suggests that the world concentrates on "Arab" Islam, and ignores the rest. Not only is that false (at least where H. and I are concerned), not only does it carry racist undertones (yes, "Arab" is, for lack of a better word, a "race"; "Muslim" is not), but it purposefully ignores that the Middle East is Islam's birthplace, and still regarded as it's "Mecca" (haha). It's fine and dandy to put the blame that it deserves on European colonialism, but the author seems to forget that the spread of Islam is mostly due to, hey, Arabo-Islamic colonisation (and/or military conquest, sometimes with a healthy sprinkling of "cleansing", i.e. persecution of non-muslims 'till there were none left). But hey, Christianity did the same.
A really weird part is when the author somehow turns our quasi-universal use of the "Christian" calender into an illustration of Euro-American "structural violence and hegemony". Wow.
All in all, I learned nothing new whatsoever from what I read of that book, and cannot recommend it.

So there are modern/accomodationist interpretations of the Qur'an and Islamic doctrine? So not all Muslims are crazy male Saladins (I'm not making this up)? No one here is disputing that. So there are also other factors at work here? Not being denied either.

Neither are we arguing that muslims are more likely to commit violence than anyone else. By taking away the bold when citing me, you changed the meaning of the citation, creating one of the strawmen you also use to attack Harris: the key words are "in the name of" (or, to paraphrase "with the justification/motivation" of religion).

What is being argued is that Islam, i.e. the doctrines found in the Qur'an and Hadith, justify - render moral even - actions that are unethical, harmful, violent (the same is true of the Bible, from which Sharia law stems, but it is much less practiced than under Islam). That is why I quote the Qur'an, which - whether you like it or not - constitutes the core of the religion called "Islam" ("submission", btw... a pretty bad start). Nor can you deny that said religion demands that its holy text be considered the infallible and ultimate word of God (33:36). Many Muslims ignore the worser parts? Yay hooray! Doesn't change that some do not.

As for evidence (of which the book you cite, at least the parts accessible to me, contained none), you will never get it from me because you want evidence that supports the strawman arguments you put in H.'s mouth and mine, and there's no way you're getting that from either. What you do get, from the small sample of examples above (in a mess of html, i admit), is evidence that Islam today, more than any other religion, is at the source of (e.g. application of Sharia law) or aggravates (e.g. honour killing, fgm) acts of violence, discrimination and barbarity.

Is the fact that more than half of the active terrorist groups in existence today wear their Islamist agenda proudly, often including it in their name, not "evidency" enough for you?

Is the fact that unethical practices are condoned by Islamic (and almost only Islamic) regimes, even enshrined in civil law (which is also religious law), not evidence of Islam's virulence?

What more do you want? You say "You can't attack the religion without attacking the people who believe in that religion". You, and the author of that pathetic excuse of an article you just linked to, are trying to project a generalising, hate and fear-mongering view on people like Harris and myself, something I find both ignorant and insulting. Of course I can criticise an ideology, warn against its potential (and existing) negative consequences, without targeting every one of its adherents, or even the majority thereof. When Hitchens points out that the idea of vicarious redemption, central to Christianity, is unethical, and the Christian God's treatment of Abraham disgusting, is he saying that all Christian's are unethical and disgusting?

You say: Prove that people in Islamic countries are suffering because of Islam and not because we colonized them, used them as pawns in our own political games, got overthrown or kicked out, then either left them to rot or turned them into our oil suppliers while funding autocratic regimes and looking the other way as they tortured and killed their own people. Prove that it's Islam and not the appalling lack of medical care, education, political access, or access to a reliable legal system that accounts for the violence. Prove that the tenets of Islam are a significant factor in the violence and not just lipservice paid to justify it.

Quite simple really: compare pre-Islamic revolution Iran with post-Islamic revolution Iran. Compare the twin fates of Pakistan and India, the former being "created" as an Islamic nation. Which of the two bears the record for honour killings (the Sihks and Hindus try hard to catch up, I know)? Which of the two was hiding the world's most famous terrorist and Islamic fundamentalist? Which of the two has one of the lowest rates of literacy for women? In which of these two countries, whose post-colonial fate is practically identical, do you have 7/10 chances to be sexually abused in a police station if you are a women? I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Colonialism and its modern forms (globalisation, etc.) have a lot of blame to shoulder, no doubt whatsoever. But that does not diminish in any way the import and effect of Islam's doctrines. Did colonialists invent sharia law, for example, or demand it be enforced? No. Mohamed and his ideology did.
Blaming everything on colonialism and "western" influence is a twisted form of pretentiousness, as if only the "west" could come up with bad stuff. Arabs, Asians, Africans, etc. are people too, they too can be atrocious, it's not just reserved for the whiteys! It's as wrong as blaming slavery entirely on Europe and the American colonies. The slave trade in Africa and the Middle East was going on long before "westerners" became buyers, and guess who was doing the trading?

As long as you insist on blinding yourself to the influence of Islam in the world today, or at least to its negative aspects, you will have a skewed and prejudiced view, exactly what you are accusing others of. Of course it is only one factor among many, but it is an important factor, whether that suits your guilt-by-association-ridden conscience or not.

Angry, uneducated mobs: It's how bad people take power over good countries.

- Iran: Islamic Revolution
- North Korea: Communist revolution
- Afghanistan: Taliban
- Germany: National Socialist German Workers' Party

All started in democratic or at least peaceful republics where a minority 'fringe element' rallied and protested.

They need to be less concerned about the current government, and more worried about a charismatic individual who sees the opportunity in focusing their anger.
If Sarah Palin wasn't stupid I'd be worried. But I'm watching who chooses to stand behind to direct her.

The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (pdf), the consensus opinion of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."

That may be (I don't believe it) but I'm responding to this video where Reza cites the IAEA in 2003.

Citing "U.S. intelligence agencies" doesn't give me a lot of confidence considering they did not in fact know India had nukes (yes they knew they were pursuing them. Germans were pursuing them in WW2. I mean "had nukes" as in they actually had them. Ready to use. It was 1973 when India detonated one to the shock of intelligence communities around the world) .. But of course this is the intelligence apparatus that determined there were WMD's in Iraq.

Shouldn't Israel then as well. Instead of telling the Palestinians what form of existence they should enjoy? I mean honestly you talking about a nation whose power structure was assassinated by the CIA for oil rights brought in a corrupt Shah. Eventually lead to the Islamic revolution. No US dialog has been maintained since. It's like me kicking over someones sand castle and then becoming shocked at their attempt to punch me in the face.

You're changing the whole argument here to something that has nothing to do with this video. Now it's about Israel and Palestine. I know it's America's fault somehow because you mentioned oil and the Shaw. Not sure what is your point though? Does Iran resent and hate us because of the Shaw yet the people in the street now want to engage us and move past that? Bonus points if you can actually make it relate to this video.

Should Israel dial back it's rhetoric of what? That it will defend itself? They are faced with an enemy that is bent on their destruction. Iran. A sovereign state has made it a mandate that they will seek the extinction of this people. That's kind of rude huh? One of the main stumbling blocks for US foreign policy is Israel. Is that because Israel is so fucked up or because there are so many Islamic run regimes that are committed heart and soul to seeing Israel annihilated? Personally, it doesn't matter how you look at it .. they are our allies, and like Britain, Australia, Japan or any of America's trusted friends .. we are bound to defend and support them. It would be a lot easier to turn our back on our allies, but that isn't going to happen.

Is a nuclear armed North Korea? Russia? US? Seems to be alot of tolerance for that there. A state a believe far more willing to put its entire population at nuclear apocalypse.

I actually don't know what that last sentence means. Sorry.
Would the world be better if no one had nukes? Maybe. Will it be better if everyone has nukes? Of course not.

First strike policy is not pursued by any state. Actually, I think that's bullshit. Every nuclear state is trying to develop a first strike plan. We already know such plans exist with "acceptable losses" and such. The good news is M.A.D. has been affective and no one has really figured out an acceptable first strike strategy, yet. The problem is people like money, and what one state uses as a deterrent another emerging state uses as ransom. Iran and other "rogue" states could not actually assure destruction of the US the way the Soviets could during the cold war. So M.A.D. doesn't apply. It's just a threat .. like the Somali pirates. Fear our power. Pay the ransom. Iran (like N. Korea) see nukes as an an extortion tool. A bargaining chip. A chance to wield power and control a spot at the table of world affairs. Some of this is "give in to us or we sell it to others".

We know there are groups out there though that don't fear any retaliation. They don't have a state, don't give a shit if their people live or die because they are on a "mission from God" (sorry Blue's Brothers) .. and those groups buy these technologies from rouge states. So any state emerging with that technology deserves international scrutiny. Obviously.

We can't let every nation on Earth become nuclear states. If you want to argue about the US, Russia, China, etc and other nations that already have them then the only way to solve the problem is to build a time machine. Those nations already have them now and the only way to deal with it is to draw down the numbers of weapons in the stockpiles. Not increase the threat to the entire world by adding new members to the club.

Lastly, I specifically said it was not the Iranian people in general that are the problem, but the hard line psychos in charge. Yet, don't forget there are demonstrations in the streets for Ahmadinejad too. So they say.

>> ^burdturgler:
It is complete speculation on his part that there is no nuclear weapon ambition or program in Iran.

The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (pdf), the consensus opinion of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies:

"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."


The C.I.A. and the rest of Earth found out because India detonated one.

India announced the pursuit of atomics in 1946, in 1968 it did not sign the NPT, in 1974 it conducted its first tests. This doesn't sound like lack of knowledge to me. The information was kept from the general public to avoid a preemptive atomic confrontation between India and Pakistan. That issue as a whole is entirely different then the one in the Middle East.


Iran needs to dial back it's rhetoric and hate speech and get more in line with the international cooperation and dialog that it's people wants.

Shouldn't Israel then as well. Instead of telling the Palestinians what form of existence they should enjoy? I mean honestly you talking about a nation whose power structure was assassinated by the CIA for oil rights brought in a corrupt Shah. Eventually lead to the Islamic revolution. No US dialog has been maintained since. It's like me kicking over someones sand castle and then becoming shocked at their attempt to punch me in the face.


Does anyone honestly think a nuclear armed Iran is a viable option for world stability and peace?


Is a nuclear armed North Korea? Russia? US? Seems to be alot of tolerance for that there. A state a believe far more willing to put its entire population at nuclear apocalypse.

No nation attains nuclear weapons for the purpose of using them anymore. It just doesn't make sense politically, ever since the US detonated the Hiroshima bomb and the nuclear arms race of the Cold War that nuclear weapons simply exist as means of deterrence. First strike policy is not pursued by any state because its admission and allowance to be attacked first preemptively. Thus everyone claims base deterrence use.

I don't find it acceptable that Israel has UNDECLARED nuclear weapons still and somehow that is okay. The threat of them striking Iran is just as great in my eyes. Shit they bombed Syria and Iraq just for the smallest whiff of nuclear capability. But what kind of action is that? How is that acceptable.

Further more your entire line about Iranians being made into anti-Israel haters flies in face of the protests taking place now trying to depose a president who was clearly illegally placed into power and has spent the last 4 years doing nothing but talking garbage. I don't know why people are so willing to think Bush was retarded in his foreign policy assessments and somehow take Iran's president seriously.

Ah the Kurds, I never knew that concentration camps existed, it seems kinda of odd to me. I had thought that intervention with Kurdish affairs ended with Operation Provide Comfort.

Even then I would not agree to the grounds for war in 2003. I would have agreed to them in 1991, when there was a strong international coalition and strong legal and moral pretense with the Iraqi use of chemical and biological weapons against its own people, Iran and the Kurds, as well as the invasion of Kuwait. But its hard to say something like that, knowing that the US bankrolled the Iran Iraq war, that it propped up Saddam Hussein after the CIA blowback from installing the Shah in Iran and the subsequent Islamic revolution. It's hard to support the American effort knowing that their meddling in middle eastern affairs created the very problems they seem to address years later, the aptly called "hes a son of a bitch but our son of a bitch" foreign policy of propping up dictators and despotic rulers, this is not even starting to talk about the ISI, Afghanistan the Mujahedeen and the formation of Al Qaeda.

Personally I think the largest example of international do nothingness is the 800,000 killed during the Rwandan genocide. Somehow Iraq is okay to invade to liberate, Bosnia is okay to invade to liberate but not Darfur and not Rwanda. The UN simply sat and watched a country collapse into internal genocide.

^agreed, but i can identify with what the author wanted to accentuate with that little gesture, i think. the facts are true, much has been written about this incident, however, since US was (and still is) constantly provoking Iran since the islamic revolution and nationalisation of oil resources, this affair was promptly hushed up and the culprits have been awarded honors instead of deserved punishment. that pisses me off. we can't let governments get away with murder

From Harpers Six Questions for Darius Rejali, Author of ‘Torture and Democracy’

3. In America today, the debate seems to focus on the efficacy of torture—whether it is a useful tool for getting at the truth. You note the flow from the Roman Ulpian, who accepts torture as something quite normal to be used in interrogation (though he does at some points express skepticism about its usefulness) to Cesare Beccaria, whose monumental denunciation of torture did so much to influence European ideas about torture and criminal justice in the eighteenth century. But today we seem stuck in a debate in which those who use torture are eager to try to justify themselves but unwilling to let a bright light shine into their conduct, ostensibly for national security reasons, though many will inevitably suspect that secrecy is driven by concerns for their own culpability. You offer up a very lengthy and nuanced discussion on the efficacy of torture, and in your Washington Post column on five myths you have pulled some chestnuts out of it. One of them is that “people will say anything under torture.” But isn’t the claim rather the way Shakespeare put it in act III of the ‘Merchant of Venice,’ that people will say what they think the torturer wants them to say? And doesn’t that explain why societies that put a premium on confessions like torture to extract them, and why al-Libi told the CIA about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent WMD plans? Don’t you think that the efficacy discussion has to address the broader consequences that a decision to use torture has to reputation, and conversely to the ability of a terrorist foe to recruit?

Yes, I do. During the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Shah’s torture was the best recruiting tool the opposition had. Prisons were places where prisoners met each other and professionalized their skills, as I and others have documented. It feels like a nightmare watching American politicians make the same mistake as the Shah. I like to believe that with every mistake we must surely be learning, but sometimes it is hard to believe.

When I talked about people under torture saying anything, I was especially interested in the cases where torturers interrogate for true information. That’s what I document doesn’t work. But it seems pretty clear that torture works to generate false confessions, which serve equally as well as true confessions for many state purposes. When judges and juries value confessions as decisive proof, police are happy to generate confessions for convictions. This can happen in domestic crime, as it happened in Chicago in the 1980s where African Americans were sentenced to death on the basis of coerced confessions. They’re also good for international show trials, trials that exonerate the state’s failures. Stalin wanted show trials to demonstrate that terrorists and saboteurs caused his failures, and he wasn’t the last leader who liked show trials to vindicate his decisions. And lastly, states use false confessions as blackmail to turn prisoners into unwilling informants. Torture allows one to collect dependent and insular individuals, spreading a net of fear across a population. This can happen locally (as in a ghetto) or in a whole state, like East Germany.

It’s also true that torturers often hear what they want to hear. In fact that’s one of the big problems with torture that I document in the book and the “Five Myths” article. Even if torture could actually break a person and they told you the truth, the torturer has to recognize it was the truth, and too often that doesn’t happen because torturers come into a situation with their own assumptions and don’t believe the victim. Moreover, intelligence gathering is especially vulnerable to deception. In police work, the crime is already known; all one wants is the confession. In intelligence, one must gather information about things that one does not know.

And let’s remember, torturers aren’t chosen for intelligence; they are chosen for devotion and loyalty, and they are terrible at spotting the truth when they see it. In the “Five Myths” piece I talk about how the Chilean secret service lost valuable information in that way when they broke Sheila Cassidy, an English doctor, and she told them everything but they didn’t believe her. And one can just repeat dozens of stories like this. My favorite is when Senator John McCain tried to explain the concept of Easter to his North Vietnamese torturer. “We believe there was a guy who walked the earth, did great things, was killed and three days later, he rose from the dead and went up to heaven.” His interrogator was puzzled and asked him to explain it again and again. He left, and when he came back, he was angry and threatened to beat him. Americans couldn’t possibly believe in “Easter” since no one lives again; McCain had to be making this up."

ok, bamdrew, though i won't say fair enough...

the daily show really shouldn't have it both ways - it's either a comedy show or it's a news program -- jon stewart on crossfire intimated that the show shouldn't be taken seriously because they followed a program where puppets make crank phone calls

if this is the source of other people's beliefs or 'what they've absorbed' then i can only shake my head - too many people are not sufficiently circumspect of what they accept as a source for their understandings

so, with no idea of why, what, or from where they draw their beliefs...

yes, i'll try to help in providing what they apparently can't or don't want to find

osama / taliban:

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/bergen.answers/index.html

as to saddam, well, your contention and mine aren't specifically at cross purposes...

the tds clip appears to claim that our military sales to saddam made him too powerful to easily remove in any subsequent regime change

to this you bring up rumsfeld and intel - both of which, i'll wager, did very little to strengthen saddam vis a vis the tds claim -- the military sales / aid i already clarified in my first post here

only the most obtuse of revisionists will fail to remember the context of realpolitik of the early '80s -- the ayatollah's islamic revolution having just seized control of iran--as well as their taking and holding us hostages for 444 days (and finally releasing them just two years before the rumsfeld photo), and providing hezbollah support with which they kidnapped more americans in lebanon--meant that the us was pleased to have a secular foil on the arab street

you may find it interesting that, in speaking of the infamous photo op of saddam and rumsfeld shaking hands, for every such photo, i can provide you with at least five of jacques chirac and saddam

I take it you didn't know we were selling arms to both sides, supporting Iraq after the CIA operation to install the Shah of Iran back fired in the form of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and creating the subsequent hostage situation. Not even mentioning the whole Iran-Contra affair. The CIA itself stated that this would happen, categorized as operational "blow-back".

Why re-install the Shah of Iran? Because the Iranian people wanted to simply nationalize their oil supply away from corporations from the UK and the US.

"what's with all the terrorist media lately on the ol'sift? " - again with the ignorant hate lobododo! This clip is pre-revolution, as in before the Islamic revolution. Googoosh was banned in Iran under the Islamic revolution. Why don't you learn something about history instead of spreading hate?

archchef, you don't seem to understand the nature of this conflict. This isn't world war 2 where the other enemy is clearly wearing a different uniform. The resistance now is blending in with civilians, using guerrilla tactics. US forces are not just fighting terrorists, they are fighting ordinary people who see this as a violation of their land. The addition of actual terrorists makes this even worse.

This is exactly the replay of events when the UK attacked Egypt over the Suez Canal, only that was resolved in days rather then years, by now this is the longest US engagement since World War 2. The resistance is the same faced by US forces in Vietnam, home forces fighting for their land, politicians at the time saw that as a part of the cold war when in reality it was a civil war.

The only way to win was through diplomacy and cooperation, instead now we are simply radicalizing an entire region against the US. Many question why Iran is so hostile, well of course they would be after the CIA implanted a Shah of Iran when Iran wanted to nationalize it's oil supply, which lead to the Islamic revolution. The CIA itself stated that the way events played out in Iran there will be considerable "blow-back" against the US. Cuba, as Castro said 'flushed it's toilets' on the US after the Bay of Pigs.

No administration thinks about the implications of their actions down the line, only thinking of objectives that are short term like 4 years. This has to change. But clearly modern history is not an important subject these days.