Bryan Fischer takes xenophobia to a whole new level:
Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government. Each one is a potential jihadist recruitment and training center, and determined to implement the ‘Grand Jihad’ of which Andy McCarthy has written.
Because of this subversive ideology, Muslims cannot claim religious freedom protections under the First Amendment. They are currently using First Amendment freedoms to make plans to destroy the First Amendment altogether. There is no such thing as freedom of religion in Islam, and it is sheer and utter folly for Americans to delude themselves into thinking otherwise.
Not to worry! He has a simple plan that all potential mosque-builders and American Muslims can follow in order to get their building permits:
If a mosque was willing to publicly renounce the Koran and its 109 verses that call for the death of infidels, renounce Allah and his messenger Mohammed, publicly condemn Osama bin Laden, Hamas, and Abdelbaset al Megrahi (the Lockerbie bomber), maybe then they could be allowed to build their buildings. But then they wouldn’t be Muslims at that point, now would they?
Leaving aside how a mosque could publicly renounce anything, this is really one of the most staggeringly stupid things I’ve ever read. This makes Andy McCarthy’s anti-Muslim screeds look like poems about kittens. Good grief.
(hat tip)
Wordsmith
This I’ve been mulling over since seeing it on Keith Olbermann’s show last night. This is the kind of thing that just takes my breath away in the face of such hatred. These people are not Christian in any SENSE of the word or the theology.
Perhaps we could also ask those building places of worship to the Christian god renounce the same types of passages, et al, that Mr. Fischer asks of the Muslims, in their little bible.
Face
Speaking of xenophobia, Peter Grier takes the whole “well, ‘most’ does not mean ALL, so let me find just one whack job and base the whole fucking premise on what 1 said whackjob thinks” genre to a new unreal height.
Stuck in the Funhouse
I wish you’d quit bringing the right wing talking points, and why, pray tell, have you not discovered a cure for cancer and blogged to us about it. Substance dude, it’s all about the substance.
MattR
I have mixed feeling about jackasses like this. Obviously this kind of xenophobia is dangerous and needs to be condemned. But at the same time, I think I prefer it to be out in the open instead of pretending that they are only objecting to the insensitivity of building near “hallowed” ground.
wilfred
At least he’s out in the open and up front about it.
Incidentally, it’s not xenophobia. It’s very specific anti-Muslim bigotry.
Mike Kely
Oh sir… it’s only wafer thin!
ericvsthem
No problem here if they ban the construction of new mosques in the United States, provided they also include new temples, synagogues, churches, etc. Mr. Fischer, who seems like a very reasonable man, would surely accept this fair compromise.
peach flavored shampoo
Just wait until the next guy ups the Teatard Scale to 11 and demands we either deport or intern all Muslims. It’s coming, guarenteed.
steviez314
And Kareem Abdul Jabaar has to change his name back to Lew Alcindor.
And Muhammad Ali has to say “Joe Frazier is my daddy.”
nancydarling
I fear another “night of broken glass” looming on the horizon.
BlueDWarrior
I just want to know when someone that not in a basement browsing Stormfront 24/7 is gonna get in front of a camera and just yell “Wake up White People, we have to go kill all the Darkies*”
*Darkies in this modern context should apply to anyone darker than the typical portryal of White Jesus in Christian(ist?) art.
QDC
Sully had a post that linked to an article from 2002 wherein various Southern Baptists compare Islam to satanism and try to sue UNC for having students read a book about the Quran. What struck me is that the rhetoric sounds the same, and is 8 years old.
A portion of the religious right has used rhetoric featuring naked animosity towards Muslims, has done so since well before 9/11, and will continue to do so.
My point is just that we shouldn’t interpret Fischer as escalating the anti-Cordoba House rhetoric. Rather, these idiots have always talked like this. The concern is that mainstream Republican rhetoric has veered disturbingly close to what was previously marginalized background noise. As a couple of people have pointed out, Bush–to his credit–kept this kind of stuff tamped down.
David Hunt
This drek came to my attention a couple of days ago. I have been blissfully unaware of this Fischer character up to that point. Is he anyone with any real influence or is he just a nut that managed to make it to the forefront of the blogosphere’s awareness? If he’s new, is he likely to leverage his 15 minutes into more lasting influence? If he’s not new, what rock has he been hurling this type of dross out from under?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Stuck in the Funhouse: Huh? You could slap John’s name on this one, and we’d all be having fun with it. You really need to get over your EDK obsession. It’s about as bad as McCain’s obsession with 2008.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@steviez314:
If George Foreman was his daddy, I think there are like 50 of them running around.
Alwhite
I like this standard! But I think it needs to be used across the board. No new churchs until the renounce the 347 verses calling for death for non-believers as well as those giving examples of God killing non-believers.
Not familiar enough with the other great cults of the world but assume Synagogues would have pretty close to the same number since most are from the OT. Buddhists might be free & clear but I have no idea about the holy books of Hinduism.
ornery curmudgeon
This is conservatism … the gateway ideology to fascism. Yeah I said it.
After WWII there shouldn’t even BE a Right-wing in this county … but here it is, in all it’s seductive insanity. Even this Kain poster calls himself ‘conservative’ and he’s the newest thing here.
chopper
love it. the only way to win is not to play.
i swear to god, this country is full of buffoons.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Obsession? wtf? one comment of snark. Piss off.
matoko_chan
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): lighten up dude. SitF can say what he likes.
btw, did you know that this is Kain’s blog?
question for E.D. ………do you think western culture is superior to islamic culture?
(disclosure- this is a TRICK question)
Comrade Dread
There honestly is a complete lack of empathy in the modern ‘conservative’ movement these days.
I mean, really, given the history of Christianity, especially the early church vs. Rome, this guy can’t even possibly conceive that giving the State the power to decide which religion is valid and gets to build worship centers and which is heresy deserving of having its rights stripped until they essentially confess ‘Caesar is Lord’ is perhaps a really, really, really bad idea that might come back and bite us in the behind at some point in the future?
jrg
Said Keep the Commandment Co-Director Bryan Fischer,
So, in other words: public funds on public land to support his religion: Not a violation of the first amendment. Private funds on private land to support someone else’s religion: A violation of the first amendment.
What a scumbag. Who has the “subversive ideology”, again? Who is “currently using First Amendment freedoms to make plans to destroy the First Amendment altogether”?
cleek
@peach flavored shampoo:
the guy who wrote the screed above (Bryan Fischer) already did it:
chopper
i’d like to build a really tiny mosque in an 8-foot wide alleyway in NYC and tell fischer “but sir, it’s only wafer-thin“
DougJ
Why stop at mosques? Why not ban the halal meat carts , too?
FlipYrWhig
@Alwhite:
That’s what I was going to say. When it comes to verses about smiting and slaughter, The Bible isn’t exactly at the bottom of the list. Moderate Xian pls refudiate!
Joshua Norton
How eeeevil. Everyone knows that’s the exclusive domain of the teabaggers and their enablers.
Frank
That’s fine. But he and other haters must then also adopt the very same hateful logic to Christian churches.
Permits should not be granted to build even one more Christian church in the United States of America as each one is a potential terrorist recruitment and training center.
As a matter of fact, considering that “Christians” have been bombing abortion clinics and killing abortion doctors for deacdes, this should have happened a long time ago.
Of course, this is not my belief. But this is Bryan Fischer’s belief per his very own logic.
Dave
Wow. It’s important that we know about this hotbed of terror just two blocks from Ground Zero. As opposed to this hotbed of terror that has existed four blocks from Ground Zero for forty years.
feebog
In the clip I saw on Countdown last night this moron then proceeded to say that he was not calling for the closing of all Mosques in the U.S., just not building any new ones. My question is this, if he truely believes what is in quotes above, why let the existing Mosques stand? Raze them to the ground, round up all the Muslims and put them in concentration camps. Thats the only way we will be safe.
These haters have no internal consistentsy to their rhetoric. They just spill out the hate in a kind of mind numbing shitbag of invective.
El Cid
We are so god-damned committed to our FREEDOM of religion (NOT freedom FROM religion!) that we have to be willing to shut down any religion which we think might be a threat to our FREEDOM of religion.
Comrade Dread
Yes. (See Constitutional rights.) SATSQ.
Alwhite
@nancydarling:
Yeah – & then maybe we can make all Muslims wear yellow crescents on their cloths so we can identify them.
A few years ago I went to a bluegrass festival – Sunday was dedicated to gospel. Most of it wasn’t bad although most of the groups were very amateur. My “favorite” was a family group: dad almost looked Amish, long beard black pants, white shirt, suspenders – mom – checked dress from neck to floor, thousand yard stare – teen daughter same. Their big number (which sadly got a positive reaction) had a refrain that went “Oh, we’ll first kill Allah, then we’ll take down Buddha”
Now there is some fine Christian love.
matoko_chan
@Comrade Dread: i wasn’t axin you.
c’mon E.D., man up and answer.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Since my name is on it, you want to have some fun with me. tough guy.
Sentient Puddle
@matoko_chan: Well, if anyone ’round here could stand to get over their E.D. Kain obsession…
Nylund
But he implied a PEACEFUL overthrow, right?
Not like THIS Tea Partier,
Or THIS one. or THIS one. Or THIS one.
It seems to me the Tea Party has advocated for violently overthrowing the US Government more so than the Cordoba house or your run of the mill mosque. Heck, the whole point of the Oathers is their willingness to use violence against the US government.
Can we ban the Tea Party and Oathers too then?
schrodinger's cat
Does this mean if the Republicans win the Presidency again, we are going to live in a theocracy?
scav
Whew, we’re going to be busy here. What with getting all the Catholic Churches to publicly renounce the Pope as an alien leader and coming up with the list of denominations that have to condemn Fred Phelps, Tim McVeigh, Eric Robert Rudolph, James Kopp, et al. we may have discovered quite a boost to employment here.
Stuck in the Funhouse
crickets?
that’s what I thought
Ash Can
I’m with the posters here who say that it’s all about the influence. There will always be bigots, and thanks to the Internet the ones who spew their venom in public are easier to find. As worrisome as this may be, however, the far more troubling question would be whether they’re persuading an appreciable number of other people to believe the way they do, or, even more disastrously, persuading any politicians to incorporate this bigotry into the policy they make.
Frank
@El Cid:
Me head is just spinning at the circular logic of these nut cases. We were told by our government back in 2001 that Al Queda attacked us because they hated our freedoms. What freedoms, exactly? The people on the right fringes in this country apparently want to get rid of all these freedoms.
Freedom of religion – yes, as long as it is the approved religion. How the hell is this any different than what took place in Europe back some 400 years ago? People were being killed because they believed in the wrong religion. Eventually they moved to America because this is where they had the right to pray according to their own religion. And now these mouth breathers want to adopt what Europe had in place some 400 years ago. It’s flabbergasting.
PeakVT
Imagine the reaction if someone said, “I don’t think any churches should be built until Christians renounce the Bible and the verses that call for the killing of sinners, renounce God and his messenger Jesus, and publicly condemn Scott Roeder, Eric Rudolph, and the leaders of every Crusade.”
Splitting Image
I’d go even further and say he’s an unbeliever who is scared shitless of people with beliefs and traditions they care deeply about. The guy is only comfortable around Christians because he knows a good percentage of them are the casual, cafeteria variety and another good percentage are grifters like him who are only in the club for the social advantages.
He’s not so confident about Muslims, hence the fear.
Mind you, this is exactly the sort of person who would call Desmond Tutu a communist and has spent the last thirty years frothing at the mouth over Jimmy Carter, so it isn’t only Muslims they hate.
gnomedad
I’m fine with building more churches as soon as Christians renounce Jesus, who said “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
Davis X. Machina
@nancydarling: The only thing that’s kept that from happening already is the relative scarcity of mosques and Islamic Centers.
matoko_chan
@Sentient Puddle: halp Cole! the politesse Nazis guestblogger thought police are attacking us!!
Comrade Dread
@feebog: I’ve made the same observation to folks who suggest that all Muslims are secret jihadists ready to strap on a bomb and kill Americans and Jews whenever Commissioner Gordon flips the Crescent Signal on.
Usually, the answer I get isn’t encouraging.
I’ve even used the words ‘final solution’ and some folks haven’t caught the bitter irony.
NonyNony
@Wordsmith:
Sure they are – we’re talking about the same religion that launched Crusades, burned witches, and used “blood libel” to turn the Inquisition on the Jews for the crime of being Jewish.
There are a lot of good things about Christianity, but like all things created by men you can’t just keep the good things and say that anyone who follows the bad things isn’t “really a Christian”. Sure they are – the only one who gets to decide whether someone is “really a Christian” or not is Osiris – when he’s weighing their heart against a feather to decide if they go to the Afterlife or into Oblivion. Until then it’s all up for argument.
MattR
@Stuck in the Funhouse: Umm, E.D. Kain’s name is on the post Belafon was referring to, not yours.
matoko_chan
c’mon Erik…..answer my question please.
take your intellectual drubbing like a man.
J sub D
We can only hope that this retard hasn’t bred and won’t in the future. I despise the religious right (who have far more in common with OBL than with Jesus) with a depth that would reach the pits of hell if it existed.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@MattR:
I don’t think so
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Brett
They’d be atheists, since Allah is the same God as the Christian God and Jewish God according to Islam.
Isn’t it amazing how just how breathtaking stupid people like Fischer are? I seriously think it goes beyond mere ignorance – it’s like negative knowledge. It would have taken Fischer seconds to find that out on wikipedia.
Of course, while he’s at it, he could also look up the Copts, Maronites, Iranian Jews, and others and remind them that Islam allows no freedom of religion, since they seem to have obviously forgotten. Knowing Fischer though, such subtleties are beyond him – his world basically consists of
1. Real Americans
2. Commie Traitors
3. Valiant Israelis
4. Corrupt Europeans
5. Evil Mohammedans.
Martin
@Wordsmith:
In what way?
“Do not have any Gods before me”
Putting aside the issue that it’s the same God that they’re talking about, all religions are exclusionary of others. That’s the whole goddamn point. How can your faith be a true faith if you are accepting of competitors?
Sure, we’ve become much more tolerant since the crusades, but I’ve not seen a case made that today’s Christians are *more* true to the theology than the once a millennia ago. Yes, they’re taking a more socially acceptable position and a position that is more accepted even within the church, but are they actually better Christians? What’s the baseline here?
chopper
@DougJ:
you can have my shwarma when you pry it from my cold, greasy hands.
Comrade Dread
You should distinguish between the bitter massacres that occurred under the Crusades vs. the events themselves.
There is no just rationale for what happened when the crusader armies took Jerusalem (and other cities).
But the Crusades themselves were a military response to Islamic raids and military incursions into the Eastern Roman Empire, so I find it difficult to blame Constantinople for seeking aid and push back.
TheNickronomicon
@Frank: This is pretty much exactly what I wanted to say, Frank. No empathy, no ability to think clearly…I’d feel bad for them if they weren’t so poisonous to the country. It’s not like we haven’t survived their ilk before, but maaaaan, they sure are miserable to deal with.
J sub D
@MattR:
Re: “Hallowed” ground (and “Holy” sites) –
Fuck that nonsense. It’s dirt. Something happened there (or maybe not). You can fetishize it all you want but that gives you no moral claim to dictate the use of property that ain’t yours.
One last comment – What an ugly piece of crap website. Hire a third grader with MySpace experience fer chrissakes.
Brett
@El Cid:
It makes sense when you consider that they see morality and themselves through a type of tribal lens. In his view, Real Americans are inherently pro-freedom and pro-First Amendment, so they don’t have to go to the trouble of actually practicing it.
Comrade Dread
“43”You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you: Love your enemies[b] and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”
And if they nail you to a cross, pray for their forgiveness and souls.
MattR
@Stuck in the Funhouse: Belafon pretty clearly thought you were being overly critical of the post based solely on Kain being the author (though you say it was intended as snark). Based on that, why would he possibly be referring to your comment when he said the reaction would be different if John wrote it? Doesn’t it make much more sense that he was referring to the original post (which was the subject of your criticism/snark)
Stuck in the Funhouse
@MattR:
You know I thought of that, and initially included a qualifier, if I read his remark wrong,. But removed it when I got no response. It wasn’t clear to me what he meant, but sounded more like a shot to me, but if I’m wrong, off course, as always ,when that is the case, I will proffer my deepest apologies to Belafon.
matoko_chan
@Comrade Dread: you will just have to wait for your drubbing until ED answers my question.
you are low hanging fruit indeed.
MattR
@Stuck in the Funhouse: In all seriousness, thank you. I see so many people digging in and refusing to consider alternate viewpoints that it is nice to see someone able to consider different possibilities (even if it is something relatively trivial like this).
p.a.
Am I wrong, or is Allah not just Arabic for God? Does he think it’s a proper name like Zeus???
Will anyone with a public platform please point out that these people are above all SNIVELING FUCKING COWARDS?
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan: MC, what does your question have to do with the post?
Martin
@Comrade Dread: But who determines that’s the baseline? Why not Leviticus putting all the shrimp eaters to death?
I agree that what you’ve quoted is a good baseline for certain branches of Christianity today, but it’s a reflection of cultural norms rather than any preference set about in the Bible. Nowhere does it say ‘treat this as law, but this other stuff is just historical allegory’, so in a different place and time you can selectively promote some other passages of the Bible as being the baseline.
What you’re saying is ‘Christian values’ is just as much ‘desirable American or 21st century values that have been spotted in the Bible’. Is Fred Phelps really that bad of a Christian, or is he just practicing an unpopular branch of an equally justifiable practice?
Comrade Dread
@matoko_chan: Whatever, dude. I’ve had enough experience dealing with obvious troll baiting from conservatives.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: this is ED’s patented head fake moral equivalence technique.
he points out some overt madness in his base while secretly agreeing with them.
and then he comes here to laugh at them instead of trying to educate them about why they are wrong.
both sides get scammed.
simply full of win.
Mark S.
@p.a.:
Shhhh. Don’t tell him he’s been worshiping Allah all this time.
And I’m surprised he didn’t say no mosques until they accept Jesus as their personal savior.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Has this fellow ever read The Holy Bible? To get it down to only 109 verses of murder, rape, torture, eternal damnation, and genocide at the behest of its deity you’d have to excise three quarters of it. Then we could have synagogues and churches publicly renounce what’s left, I suppose.
Svensker
@Frank:
Well, yuh. Because then they won’t hate us any more and we’ll be safe and there will be peace and love.
matoko_chan
@Comrade Dread: i am a liberal that worked O’s campaign.
you are a retard that doesn’t understand history.
Comrade Dread
@Martin: Well, I would say that a good baseline from someone who calls himself a Christian is that they are followers of Christ and his teachings first and not merely converts to Judaism.
In my studies of theology, Christ placed a division between the moral laws (duties to God and humanity) and the ceremonial and civic laws of the Jewish nation.
This created enough tension in the early church between devout Jewish converts and their new Gentile brothers that the apostles got together and issued the first statement to the effect that Gentiles were not required to follow the law except to abstain from sexual immorality and certain foods involved in pagan religious rites to avoid creating offense.
Most of the rest of the following teachings of the New Testament in the epistles deals with how Christians should live in relation to each other and in relation to the world in response to the command to love one another as Christ loved them.
Phelps and his ilk ignore the command to love their neighbors and their enemies, ignore the Pauline exhortation that his moral expectations were for the church and those that called themselves Christians and not the world, and ignores the realization that no matter how bad or screwed up you think people are, we’re all in the same condition.
Mark S.
@matoko_chan:
Yeah, right. I’m sure deep down Erik really agrees with this clown.
/eyeroll
This reminds me of that coffee commercial:
“We switched Mr. Fischer’s regular God with Allah. Can he tell the difference?”
Comrade Dread
@matoko_chan: Eek. An anonymous person called me a name on the internet.
Alwhite
Another thought on refudiatin’ specific dogma:
According to the OT story of Ham, people of color are that way because God marked them for all time & it is their punishment to be held in slavery for all time because of Ham’s crime.
If we really are a Christan Nation ™ and building on the bible I think we need to re-institute slavery and start rounding up all nonwhites (does my name cover me?)
City gates will need to be built so that people can be stoned to death outside them as demanded for such things as wearing a garment of two fibers (DEATH TO COTTON-POLY!) – I think the shrimp thing is a non-capital crime though.
matoko_chan
@Mark S.: i just want him to answer the question. if ED believes western/judeoxian culture is intrinsically superior to islamic culture, doesn’t that put him and Fischer right on the same side?
i betcha a lot of the commentariat believes that too.
Do you Mark S.?
you are all homies.
:)
matoko_chan
@Comrade Dread: lawl. :)
Persia
@nancydarling: It’s really getting scary.
Svensker
@matoko_chan:
That herring you’re flogging yourself with is not only red, but very very dead.
Alwhite
@Comrade Dread:
Actually I don’t think it was the apostles, I believe it was Paul who modified the earliest teaching to make the whole scam more palatable to Greek and Roman tribes. There was a whole dust up between Paul & Jesus family and followers in Israel. The foundation of the church universal and triumphant was Paul’s work which really had little relationship to the works of Jesus.
Comrade Dread
Of course, there is no textual indication of skin pigmentation being a part of this ‘curse’. Or that such a thing applied to any of Ham’s sons other than Canaan, whose descendants were latter killed and enslaved by the Israelite nation.
matoko_chan
@Svensker: okfine.
do you think that western judeoxian culture is intrinsically superior to islamic culture?
Mark S.
@matoko_chan:
No, but even if I did it does not follow I think any inferior culture should be repressed or destroyed. For instance, I wouldn’t argue much if someone thought Chinese culture was the best of all. That doesn’t mean I would support destroying all other cultures.
matoko_chan
because, if you strip off the crazipants, that is basically what Fischer is saying.
Comrade Dread
@Alwhite: Well, if you accept the gospels as a record of Jesus’ teachings he was already talking about how his message would go out to the Gentiles, he spent time reaching out to Jewish and Samaritan lawbreakers and sinners, and he overlooked ceremonial violations of the law when human need superseded it.
As well as, of course, the famous quote where God loved the world, not just the Jewish nation.
So the idea expanded upon in the books that follows started with Christ.
Svensker
@matoko_chan:
I prefer Christianity (my variety) to Islam, otherwise I wouldn’t be a Christian. I also prefer my variety of Christianity to Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism and the Southern Baptists. Bach is my favorite composer, but I love a lot of middle eastern music. Not wild about music of east Asian Muslim countries. I would love to travel to the middle east (I have Christian Arab family from there as well as other family members who lived in Egypt, Saudi, Jordan and Lebanon), but I am afraid to go there now due to our insane foreign policy. I like the music, the food, the art of the middle east, and the rich and sophisticated cultural heritage.
Would I want to live as a Muslim in a middle eastern country. Probably not. Would I want to live as anything in an Islamic east Asian country — absolutely not.
I don’t know what bullshit answer you want. Most people “prefer” their own cultures to other cultures, that’s why they live where and how they do — otherwise they’d move.
matoko_chan
@Mark S.: Orly? shariah is fine with you? because that is an intrinsic part of islamic culture.
Comrade Dread
@matoko_chan: No, what Fischer is doing isn’t asserting Western civilization superiority. He’s undermining it.
Part of what makes at least the ideals of western civilization superior is that it can tolerate differences and dissent in individuals.
When you start trying to repress thought, debate, and religious liberties and give that power to the State to encroach upon an individual’s natural rights, you are no longer defending western civilization. You are, in effect, saying that you don’t believe that your ideas are, in fact, better. That people will not be won to your cause through reason, example, or the rightness of your cause, but that only force and coercion can save your ideas from ending up on the ash heap of history.
It is arguing from an admitted position of weakness, not strength.
Larry Signor
@matoko_chan:
What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea. – Mohandas Gandhi
Erik will have this opinion after a couple more posts at BJ.
Wordsmith
@Martin:
Welll….since I’m working, I truly cannot give you an answer that will suffice for me.
A couple of things…don’t expect me to defend Christians or Christianity; I won’t. I do, however, have a degree in Religious Studies from a private Catholic college (women).
The baseline would be the alleged premise of the ‘theology presented by Christ in the alleged gospels.
Damn good question!
matoko_chan
@Svensker: that wasn’t my question. I asked, do you believe western judeoxian culture is intrinsically superior to islamic culture?
I mean, look!
these pakis prefer stoning and cutting off hands.
matoko_chan
@Comrade Dread: no, that is not what im talking about….let me narrow this….what do you think of shariah law?
No Likudnik
So, if one can get the votes, does this mean that Americans can finally do away with temples and synagogues that post, “We stand with Israel”?
No new temples or synagogues unless members denounce Zionism as racist and immoral?
matoko_chan
@Wordsmith: getting warmer.
that was a good comment.
Alwhite
@Comrade Dread:
You are assuming that those were written contemporaneously to the events they suppose to portray. Biblical scholars do not believe that they were written as we know them by Apostles but by people a couple of hundred years removed from them & in some cases each other. Several Gospels not included by the church actually predate the ones selected.
The OT is an even better example – the hardliners say Moses wrote the first 5 books himself as directed by God. But the oldest copies show signs of having been written over hundreds of years. Sometimes Moses is referred to in the first person, sometimes third person. Why are there two completely different creation myths in Genesis? Why are there 6 variations of the 10 commandments in Exodus?
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Leviticus doesn’t put “shrimp eaters” to death. Most of the food related prohibitions (and many of the non-food related ones) in the Torah only relate to ritual cleanliness. So somebody who eats an unclean animal- or touches a dead body, suffers from some skin conditions, or does many other things- must undergo a ritual purification before being allowed to participate in religious ceremonies. Even for the most severe food-related sins, like eating flesh with the blood still in it, the punishment is for God to turn against the transgressor, not for the other Hebrews to execute him. Execution is mostly reserved for paganism, homicide, and some sexual misbehavior.
Alwhite
@matoko_chan:
I’ll pretend you don’t know that “Paki” is insulting.
Yes, its a good thing we don’t have that sort of thing from Christianist extremists – they might bomb medical clinics or shoot doctors.
Bubblegum Tate
@DougJ:
Shawarmas are just sharia-compliant burritos! And burritos are just illegal-immigrant sandwiches!
Comrade Dread
@Alwhite:
Actually, I wasn’t supposing they were written contemporaneously at all. And biblical critical scholars vary in the dates they ascribe to the book’s authorship.
Suffice to say, Mark is considered the earliest of the gospels (along with a possibly unknown gospel account that was used as a source for Matthew and Luke), and IIRC, a non-conservative date for authorship puts it around 70 AD, which is still within the lifetimes of the original witnesses and the longer living apostles.
Cassidy
@matoko_chan: Your challenge is pretty rich coming from someone who endorses genetic and racial superiority in regards to intelligence.
Svensker
@matoko_chan:
And I’m saying that’s a bullshit question. Which western judeochristian culture and what point in time? Which islamic culture, when? Cultures are not monolithic and static.
I would probably say that the highest ideals of “western civilization” are the best humans have come up with, but western civilizations don’t seem too keen on paying much attention to the ideals. If we could have a Jeffersonian republican democracy without slavery, but with antibiotics and ipods, you’d get my attention.
As someone upthread said, Ghandi’s answer seems most apposite: What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.
matoko_chan
@Svensker: right now then.
@Alwhite: i know it is insulting. im trying to get you guyz to admit to yourselves that you are western culture chauvinists.
Wordsmith and Martin’s exchange is closest to the truth.
Brachiator
@matoko_chan:
Short answer, yes, of course not. Much of Western culture is influenced by (and was saved by) Islamic culture.
In general, every good secular society is superior to any monarchy and any theocracy. And all fundamentalism is pernicious.
And on my worst day, because I think that all religion is stupid, superstitious, intellectually weak hooey, I echo the sentiments attributed to Diderot:
And by priest, I would include all clergy.
But that isn’t the point, is it?
I don’t fear subversion nearly half as much as I hate the appeal to a noxious neo-McCarthyism offered by this fool Bryan Fischer.
What’s next? Loyalty oaths and questions about are you now or have you ever been a Muslim?
This guy may be a small cog, one of a few voices playing the xenophobia card, but “I’m sure of it, I hate him,” as Doc Holiday might say.
Because freedom of conscience is a big thing for me. Huge. And this is one of those areas where I put my money where my mouth is. And when necessary, maybe even my body.
So I don’t give a rat’s ass about who thinks whose deity has the most God Fu. Neither do I care which group of religionists has done the most bad shit in the past to other people.
Restrictions on freedom of religion, hints of the need for conversion in order to be a citizen? Oh, hell, no.
Ah, this is what I was looking for. I hold this higher than fealty to any doctrine, religious or otherwise.
There is nothing in this that says or implies, “Except for the Muslims.”
matoko_chan
well, i got stuff to do.
bbl
i retire from the plain of jizzya combat.
praps ED will respond when he gets off work.
matoko_chan
aww….Brachiator, i will deal with you later too.
but that was a decent response.
:)
Svensker
@Brachiator:
What you said. I’m a Christian, but still, what you said.
FlipYrWhig
Any culture that successfully figured out a way to make chickpeas tasty is laudable in my book.
Cassidy
@matoko_chan: Why should anyone pay you any mind? You have publicly advocated that dark(er) people are less intelligent than white people based on genetics. Before you start asking some bullshit trick questions and trying to play high school level gotcha, you need to check the shit between your ears.
Makewi
Not wanting the mosque built in this location is not xenophobia or anti Muslim hate, necessarily. I have to imagine there is a small part of you all that knows this.
JGabriel
@matoko_chan:
By that logic, Martin Luther King, also a Christian preacher, must have been an Islam-hating xenophobe just like Fischer! Why did we never realize this before?
I have a dream that all the children, white and brown, except the Muslim children …
Fail, Matoko Chan.
.
FlipYrWhig
@Makewi: Um, Fischer doesn’t want any mosques built anywhere.
JGabriel
Makewi:
By this location, Fischer means all of America. If not hate, it’s a level of intolerance so high as to make the distinction functionally meaningless.
.
p.a.
Islam hasn’t had its Reformation and Enlightenment yet, or rather, the liberal (for their times at least) Islamic societies in Iberia and India (and I guess for some time frames of Ottoman rule) did not come to predominate. I know even less of Asian Islam to comment on it. Maybe my sources are biased, but I understand The Koran is much less politically ambiguous than the New Testament. Not much ‘render unto Caesar…’ there.
The obvious problem with the Christianists is that they want to undo our Reformation and Enlightenment; want a society based on an invisible sky fairy and its bigoted rules. Bigotry begets bigotry, fear begets fear, hate hate. And the only thing they will accomplish is increasing the number if Jihadis and pushing Islam further down the rabbit hole. An open tolerant liberal society is the only way to socialize and acculturate any minority.
The Other Chuck
Let’s just arrest the guy for hate speech. Wait, you say that’s unconstitutional? Well, since this Fischer character wants an asterisk on the 1st amendment, I guess I don’t feel too concerned with protecting his first amendment rights to spew this nonsense.
All you people countering Fischer with logic and reason and so on, that’s really cute. His argument is based on shut up that’s why. You’re playing chess with someone who insists it’s checkers.
Zuzu's Petals
@Wordsmith:
Well according to his logic, Christians would have to renounce the entire Bible, including all those “kill the heathen” parts of the OT and Jesus saying he “came to bring a sword,” oh and renounce Jesus and all the apostles, and any and all Popes, bishops, clergymen, and evangelists who preached out of said Bible or proselytized on behalf of said Jesus.
The Other Chuck
@p.a.:
Actually, it did very early on — but it since went downhill with a series of fundamentalist demagogue mullahs. Good thing we don’t have anything like that in Christendom, eh?
Svensker
@Makewi:
Objecting to a mosque near “Ground Zero” because of 9/11 is like objecting to the Baptist church going up on the block because some Catholic priests are pedophiles. It’s just stupid. And based on bigotry and fear. I have no idea whether a “small part of you knows this” or not. My guess is not.
Caramuru
Maybe that’s the point.
Menzies
@Zuzu’s Petals:
As well as a ton of other “prophets” and Christian terrorists that have come since – Jim Jones, the Hutaree, Scott Roeder . . . but of course, they’re not “subversives” because the sectarian organizations that funded them are all made in the USA.
Wordsmith
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Yep, you’re correct – and if I had had more time previously this would have been the jist of my answer.
Not to mention all the ‘false prophets’ who have sprung up since coming to this country, fleecing their flocks ….. still, all the way warning those said flocks about false prophets – the wolves who await them ‘in the world.’
ellaesther
Back to say, as I have so often around the webz (including here!) lately, that I really wish more non-Muslim Americans knew about the absolute wealth of statements made by Muslims categorically rejecting terrorism.
I wrote a little post about it:
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/muslim-responses-to-extremism/
Honestly, without any kind of reference to my own desire for page views (which, yes, I have that desire!), please pass the information in this post around, as much as you can. There is too much damn ignorance out there, and we used to say in the bad old days of AIDS: Knowledge is power.
ellaesther
And here is one of the best responses to the notion that “every mosque is a threat to America”:
Earlier this year, 20 North American imams issued a statement that reads (in part):
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/muslim-responses-to-extremism/
ellaesther
@p.a.: I really recommend that you look at the sources that I linked to, above.
Menzies
@Wordsmith:
Especially considering how many of those prophets also preach an extremely apocalyptic vision in which God, or Jesus (depending on your particular brand of holy poison) comes down and smites all the nonbelievers.
On a side note, I tried to send a trackback to this post, but the Internets eated it, so here’s the link:
http://theconstantlinguist.org/2010/08/12/degenerating-the-faithful/
Tip of the hat to E.D. for putting this in my line of sight. Been waiting for some good old-fashioned Islamophobic wankery.
matoko_chan
@dumbass “You have publicly advocated that dark(er) people are less intelligent than white people based on genetics”
link please?
what i said is we are going to see a proven significant between-group difference between liberal and conservative political identifications within the next decade. i did not say the IQ gap would be caused by genetic determinism. As we can observe in Mr. Fischer’s case, lower IQ humans selfselect for the GOP.
Frank
@Makewi:
Funny stuff. There currently is a much bigger mosque just four blocks from Ground Zero. It has been there for over 40 years. Why is that one OK but not the smaller one they are planning to build?
Furthermore, we hear so much crap from people like you that the mosque shouldn’t be built there because that ground is sacred. Good grief! If it was sacred, why the hell is it OK to build a building which will be rented out to Wall Street firms on that very location? Where is your outrage at that? So much for the “sacred” argument.
Jess Sane
One racist troll leaves, another appears as if by magic.
Makes ya think.
matoko_chan
all.
i said it was a trick question.
the answer is that judeoxian western culture is superior in situ, in America for example. And islamic culture is superior in situ, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Do you understand why the Bush Doctrine and COIN can never work?
Because of evolutionary theory of games (Maynard-Smith’s book on this is great.)
Consider the evolution of the big three monotheistic religions, and how they represent CSSs (culturally stable strategies).
Christianity evolved from Judaism, and evolved proselytizing as a method of increasing reps over being born jewish. Islam evolved from both Judaism and Christianity, and evolved defenses against christian proselytization. Islam included the sacred texts of the older religions, and absorbed the congregants of the two older religions with the doctrine of People of the Book and the doctrine that all humans are born muslim. thus removing the exclusivity of jewish genetic lineage or the necessity of being “saved” by accepting christ.
But of the three, Islam is the most recent, and has evolved counter strategies to the original jewish and christian reproductive and conversion strategies.
Christianity evolved proselytization to convert jews and pagans, and then islam evolved to be proselytization proof as a counter-strategy.
That is another reason interfaith is very difficult between xians and muslims……christianity evolved to proselytize, and Islam evolved to be immune to christian proselytization.
So that is the real problem with Bush proselytizing western culture in Iraq and Afghanistan (which all COIN basically is).
it simply could never work.
and that is why ED’s base gets so crazy about Islam.
because ED’s base is 99.9% christian.
and cultural evolution immunized Islam against christianity.
matoko_chan
And again, why is ED here pointing fingers and laffing at his base?
ED and his base are isomorphic.
They both believe western judeoxianity is intrinsically superior.
And they are all christians.
you see….Douthat, McMegan and ED are all the same. They have pure-D breathtaking contempt for their base.
They think the base is too stupid to learn.
ED is over here mocking his base. Like SitF said, ED needs to decide who he is.
Makewi
@Svensker:
No, It’s not like that at all really. I will put you in the stupid column.
bloodstar
Hey John,
I know you’re a fan of the free wheeling comment system and all that, but I think it might be high time to implement a registration system. Along with that, some way of being able to put certain commenters and/or front page authors on ignore.
oh, and can I have a pony too? :)
Makewi
@Frank:
I like the people like you argument. I’ll put you in the stupid column as well.
Bill Murray
@Svensker: or no more more Christian churches in the US because Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Cash and Robert Chambliss were Southern Baptists (or whatever Christian sect they were)
Bill Murray
@bloodstar: somebody (Cleek maybe?) made a pie filter for the commenters
Brachiator
@matoko_chan:
Nonsense. You keep trying to assert some continuity in Western culture (like morans who call Americans crusaders as though there was some secret book passed down the line for a thousands years connecting the US to medieval European nitwits).
Similarly, your attempts to conflate all Islamic culture is similarly misguided. Were the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan the same as any other Islamic group? From my perspective, these thugs were little more than the equivalent of a theocratic Khmer Rouge. What they imposed on Afghanistan was primitive, atavistic, and self-defeating.
And there is nothing intrinsic about Islamic culture even in the places where it has long become the dominant culture.
How, for example, could the Muslim Mughal rulers of India be seen as an example of Islamic culture in situ when they were foreign invaders, occupiers who tried to impose their alien values on another culture?
Bush never had a consistent doctrine. Don’t need “evolutionary theory of games” to figure that out. Whether COIN will ever work, who knows, probably not, but it doesn’t have much to do with Bush.
Your attempt to use evolution, which is about biology, to talk about the history of religion, is absolute, total nonsense, especially when you talk about “reproductive and conversion strategies.” It is somewhat interesting, but ultimately incoherent as a metaphor. So I note your efforts and move on.
The larger part of the problem is not Western vs Islamic or Christian vs Muslim, it’s primitive vs modern. There is nothing in shariah law that demands that the Taliban act the way they do. And the militant hostility to all outsiders is as much cultural and particular to Afghanistan as it is some function of Islam. The warrior culture of parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan puts those in the tribal areas at odds with the Pakistan government, even though Pakistan is an Islamic republic.
The worst aspects of Islam, like the worst aspects of much fundamentalism anywhere, seems to be immunized against reality. This is more of a threat to Muslims than any supposed jihadists are to the West.
And even here the immunization you speak of is not a special feature of Islam. At worst, it is just like the paranoid reactions of all primitive, totalitarian or authoritarian societies, like the North Koreans, the current Burmese regime or ignorant, primitive reactionary Hindus trying to maintain caste distinctions or subjugate women through violence and intimidation.
But again, returning to the main idea of this thread, the notion that any religion is intrinsically superior (or inferior) to any other is ridiculous. And Muslims in American don’t have any reason to have to justify their beliefs to anyone, and should be as free to worship as any other group here.
Wordsmith
@Menzies: OMG…. I tried to figure out for the weirdest second ‘constantin[e]….what? before I read it correctly. BBL to read – after work – still freakin’ working …..
Alwhite
@matoko_chan:
oh, sorry I misunderstood your intent
carry on then :)
Alwhite
@Comrade Dread:
I guess the works I have read have not put them as that old. What I have read is that they are later and not done by the supposed authors. But so much of this is lost in the mists of time & badly mangled by the early church.
If I had all the time & money I think this would be a very interesting field of study. But we will never really know. I will do some more digging on time frames for the gospels (do you have any suggestions to support your dates?). I rarely assume I am right, particularly about this sort of crap which is bound by lies, deceit and lost history so I appreciate the opportunity to investigate.
Wordsmith
@Frank: Funny stuff.
Interesting. Where’s this mosque located? Does it have a name?
Cain
@Brett:
We should just collapse this list to the heroic autobots and the evil decepticons, With gingrich and palin being quintessons.
yeah sorry I watched too much transformers as a youth. :)
cain
Frank
@Wordsmith:
The name is Masjid Manhattan. It’s about a block west of the Tweed Courthouse.
Cain
@Wordsmith:
This is where people go wrong. They think there is only one method to realize God. Which makes no sense because if you accept the world we live in as God’s creation then you will find there is never a single way of doing things. Animals survive so many ways. No single predator kills the same way. No human reacts the same way. Why would you worship the same way?
In Hindu philosophy, there is no assumption that the current method is the true way. In fact there might be multiple ways to reach God. The reasoning then is “we’ve tried this way; it seems to work but if you find another way, we’ll just add that to the list of ways to get there.” ‘
This is why India is able to absorb religions that land on its shores. Every practice is absorbed as yet another way. Allah, Jesus, are all reincarnations of God. It’s hard to get fundamentalist when you have a religion that is set up to accept other religions. Fundamentalist hindus are really culture warriors. They hate change.
Current practices are always looked at and modified. India has become a fast paced nation, the age old customs are too slow. It doesn’t make sense for a wedding to last a week anymore since we don’t travel by bullock carts but by trains and airplanes. So it’s cut to a day. Takes too long to do daily prayers because you got to run to work and you’ve only slept 2 hours? Cut to 2 minutes while you’re eating a donut. :-)
That said, we still deal with the evils of prejudice brought upon by the caste system. I don’t consider it a part of Hinduism but part of the culture. You can have as liberal of a religion we want, but people will still find ways to fuck it up and use it for evil. So what the hell do you do?
cain
Cain
@Svensker:
It’s ‘Gandhi’. :)
cain
matoko_chan
@Brachiator: umm. in a word, no.
amg….im a muslim. and you are going to school me on al-Islam? Islam is a consensus religion, so it is grassroots homogeneity. the Taliban are Sunnis of the Hanafi School.
You are just spewing a bunch of western culture chauvinism and islamophobia.
Islam evolved from Judaism and Christianity. Islam includes the Bible/Torah and the christian and jewish prophets. Islam asserts that christians and jews (the People of Book) believe in Allah and should be treated as believers. The laws against proselytizing in islamic lands are an evolutionary counter-strategy specifically to prevent christian proselytizing.
In the beginning there were only Jews (the genetically chosen people) and pagans in the Cradle of Civilization. Then christians brought preaching/proselytization. to evangelize means to preach.
People could become christians just by accepting the christ, instead of having to be born into a jewish tribe.
Membership in a memetic tribe came with benefits. Then Islamic…universalism….included the congregants of both the older religions.
That is why muslims cant actually proselytize christians and jews. We believe in the same god.
All religions are CSSs (culturally stable strategies). The three abrahamaic religions evolved in close quarters, and so evolved strategies and counterstrategies.
Some are more successful than others.
Evolution and the Theory of Games– John Maynard-Smith.
matoko_chan
Brachiator: returning to the main idea of this thread, the notion that any religion is intrinsically superior (or inferior) to any other is ridiculous.
…..in America. in america there is secular law which imposes freedom of religion on a sometimes unwilling population.
in situ, islamic culture is superior, because there is islamic cultural substrate. that is why Bush failed.
COIN is proselytizing western-style judeo-xian democracy. Islamic Afghanistan is immune to christianity.
it can never work.
matoko_chan
Again, my point is ED is laffing at the overt crazyness of his base instead of trying to educate them. Yet ED shares the same sentiments of his base, he is a christian too.
Like SitF, i think ED should chose a side.
Like JGabriel, i think ED is trying to have it both ways.
Andre
@wilfred:
Yep, let’s be clear: this is religious bigotry directed at Americans by Americans.
Cassidy
matoko_chan has very little understanding of culture, religion, and COIN. But that hasn’t stopped you from talking out your ass, yet.
Draylon Hogg
“In the beginning there were only Jews (the genetically chosen people) and pagans in the Cradle of Civilization.”
Cradle of Civilization: China? Ancient Greece? Rome? Egypt? Not many monotheistic religions in any of those places. But quite a bit of “Civilization”.
Get the Christians to renounce the Book of Daniel. It’s quite violent I hear.
“Why would you worship the same way?”
Why would you worship anything at all? God is Man. You may as well worship the nearest Black Hole. Far more tangible and powerful than any God. But just as indifferent.
matoko_chan
@Cain:
matoko_chan
@Cassidy: rawr.
i totally understand COIN.
COIN is the Bush Doctrine renamed and cut down to village size, with a gloss of SNT (social network theory).
Unfortunately COIN creates more terrorists than it destroys because of influence propagation along both consanguinous and social network connections.
have you read the Wikileaks and LGT Barno’s op-ed in the Financial Times? 30k Talibans are asswhupping 430k coalition forces.
FAIL COIN.
matoko_chan
@Draylon Hogg: ok tigris euphrates river valley.
Cassidy
COIN isn’t the Bush doctrine. That’s your first piece of misinformation. COIN has been around a very long time just with different names.
COIN isn’t working in Afghanistan; something we can agree on. But it’s not for the reasons you think. It’s actually a very simple reason. COIN works, when applied to the correct circumstances. COIN requires certain prerequisite parameters. COIN doesn’t create terrorists; ignorance creates terrorist.
Your concept of COIN is very simplistic and not well thought out.
JGabriel
matoko_chan:
Please don’t put words in my mouth, Matoko Chan. I didn’t say anything like that in response to this post, and Erik and I already hashed out our disagreement regarding stylistic tic in a previous thread. And I don’t agree that he’s doing that here.
.
gwangung
@Cassidy:
Palineseque, even….
mclaren
America loves demonizing minorities. I’m surprised no one’s called for internment camps for Moslems. Manzanar, here we come…
First blacks, then illegal Mexicans, now Moslems. It’ll be redheads next.
matoko_chan
@Cassidy: bullshytt.
COIN=FAIL
Both COIN and the Bush Doctrine are all about standing up a western style democracy. COIN is just scaled down to village size. but when muslims are empowered to vote, they vote for shariah and islamic political parties, just like in Iraq.
the surge and the mini-surge were take and hold strats.
the mini-surge failed and the surge didnt work, did it? that is McC resigned/got fired. but even Petraeus said COIN cant work in Afghanistan.
because the Taliban are local. the only success they had in Anbar was because Al-Q in Iraq wasn’t local.
no consanguinous networks.
but even that is unravelling.
Game ovah.
Can we go home NAOW?
Cassidy
@matoko_chan:
fixed
I’ve already said that COIN isn’t working in Afghanistan. You’re just being obtuse. That isn’t the argument. The argument is that you have no clue what you’re talking about. You’ve made assumptions and judgments based on pre-existing and ignorant prejudices.
matoko_chan
@Cassidy: my judgment is based on the COIN manual and empirical data.
the surge didnt work
its unravelling.
the minisurge failed….that is why McC blew up.
two strikes out for clear and hold strat.
Wikileaks docs say we are creating more terrorists than we are killing because of collateral damage to civilians.
give some data about where COIN worked or is working.
or STFU retard.
Wordsmith
@Frank: Thanks, Frank. I was looking at maps side-by-side with Google and that’s the name/place I located as ‘it.’
Interestingly at their website, there’s this:
They were evicted from the building they had occupied for 28 years in 2008, finding another much smaller space two doors down.
Now that’s a shame.
Cassidy
@matoko_chan: I spent last year doing COIN, idiot. I’m pretty sure my experience trumps your reading of a PDF. I was on a MTT team embedded with Iraqi Army. I lived on their base. I trained their troops.
And despite your word salad, you have no idea what COIN is. COIN is not kinetic operations. Jesus, dumbass people like you piss me off. You read a PDF file and think you know what you’re talking about.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. COIN is not “clear and hold”. Collateral damage to civilians is a byproduct of kinetic operations. COIN, otoh, has worked quite well in Iraq, but that was because the parameters were in place for a successful COIN implementation.
Cassidy
If you really want to be educated on the subject you need to do two things:
1) Stop equating conventional military tactics and strategy with COIN. They are two different things. COIN has been utilized for thousands of years, in various forms, quite successfully. Modern day COIN strategy is based off of successful SF missions.
2) Stop being so subjectively retarded. You have preconceived notions of success and failure based on your opposition to the various wars. Problem is, military success, COIN success, and political success are all different things.
matoko_chan
@Cassidy: ‘clear and hold’ as defined by the “surge” and the “mini-surge” were described as part of COIN strat at Exum’s. isnt he the CNAS COIN guru? hes defending a dissertation on it.
Petraeus gets billing as the father of COIN. He said in 2008 COIN would not work in Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s local consanguinous networks. I have also read everything Dr. Kilcullen has written on COIN.
Pardon me, but you are an applications grunt.
Im operating at the SNT and trusted network level….at the DT&E level.
If there is some empirical data that COIN has evah worked, fork it over.
I’d be thrilled.