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02/12/2011 07:33:21 AM · #76 |
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02/12/2011 07:40:34 AM · #77 |
Indonesia has the highest population of Muslims and they elect a President who may only serve two terms.
However, all these answers may not be what  photodude wanted to hear as i suspect, for him, the question was rhetorical.
Message edited by author 2011-02-12 12:52:26. |
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02/12/2011 09:24:43 AM · #78 |
The issue isn't really one specific to Egypt, the Middle East or Muslims. Rather, it's one of revolution. In America, we tend to view revolution through the lens of our own revolt against the British. We see an oppressed people rising up and quickly establishing a free democratic society. In reality, many revolutions against oppressive regimes wind up with even worse regimes in power. The French Revolution resulted in "The Terror" and the rise of Napoleon. The Russian Revolution? Lenin, Stalin et al. The Iranian Revolution? The Ayatollah and the oppressive regime that continues to this day.
Message edited by author 2011-02-12 14:26:31. |
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02/12/2011 01:59:37 PM · #79 |
| Egypt was a broad-based secular revolt for freedom and democratic reform. There wasn't a strong radical element here like there was in France, Russia or Iran. No calls for sharia law, no influential clerics leading the charge, no embassies stormed, no foreign flags burned. Even the Muslim Brotherhood has been low key and noted the success of peace and moderation over Al Qaeda-style extremism. The military isn't likely to squander its reputation and respect by replacing one dictatorship with another, and has already reaffirmed its obligation to honor existing peace treaties. The only suggestions of impending radicalism are coming not from Egypt, but from fear mongerers like Glenn Beck. |
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02/12/2011 04:26:43 PM · #80 |
The Egyptian Military is still a bulk part of the machine that Mubarak used during his reign to oppress the people. Do you really believe they've suddenly "seen the light"? Maybe they just got tired of Mubarak being in the way and decided to orchestrate a way to remove him and soon, it will be back to business as usual. Any new protests will have to be put down brutally, as they would have been in the past, of course.
The fact that the radical elements don't seem apparent at the moment, doesn't mean they aren't hard at work. The smart thing for them to do is to lay low and strike amidst the chaos.
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02/12/2011 04:57:01 PM · #81 |
Originally posted by Spork99:
The Egyptian Military is still a bulk part of the machine that Mubarak used during his reign to oppress the people. Do you really believe they've suddenly "seen the light"? |
As I understand it, the Egyptian army is a conscript one, with universal (male) service, so "everyone" has a brother, uncle, cousin, or father in the military. If you're a private, who do you listen to, your corporal or your mother ...? |
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02/12/2011 05:03:32 PM · #82 |
Originally posted by Spork99:
Maybe they just got tired of Mubarak being in the way and decided to orchestrate a way to remove him and soon, it will be back to business as usual. |
Let's not light the torches just yet. It's fairly obvious that business as usual is not an option among the people of Egypt, and although the military leaders have no doubt benefitted from their associations with the former regime, their current legitimacy derives from accepting the will of those people. That's actually more analogous to the American Revolution than Iran.
The people interviewed on the street have been virtually unanimous in their desire to see real democracy and avoid extremism or another dictatorship, and some protestors have vowed to maintain their vigils until the military proves sincere in their pledge to guarantee "a peaceful transition of authority in a free democratic framework which allows an elected civilian authority to rule the country, to build a free democratic country."
Message edited by author 2011-02-12 22:58:19. |
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02/12/2011 06:07:02 PM · #83 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Spork99:
The Egyptian Military is still a bulk part of the machine that Mubarak used during his reign to oppress the people. Do you really believe they've suddenly "seen the light"? |
As I understand it, the Egyptian army is a conscript one, with universal (male) service, so "everyone" has a brother, uncle, cousin, or father in the military. If you're a private, who do you listen to, your corporal or your mother ...? |
Depends on if your corporal or your mother has a gun to your head. |
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02/12/2011 06:38:50 PM · #84 |
Originally posted by Spork99:
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Spork99:
The Egyptian Military is still a bulk part of the machine that Mubarak used during his reign to oppress the people. Do you really believe they've suddenly "seen the light"? |
As I understand it, the Egyptian army is a conscript one, with universal (male) service, so "everyone" has a brother, uncle, cousin, or father in the military. If you're a private, who do you listen to, your corporal or your mother ...? |
Depends on if your corporal or your mother has a gun to your head. |
Come on, corporals don't enforce discipline that way ... remember there are more privates than officers in any army -- if there are going to be any threats with guns it's more likely to end up the other way around. |
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02/12/2011 06:40:44 PM · #85 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Spork99:
Maybe they just got tired of Mubarak being in the way and decided to orchestrate a way to remove him and soon, it will be back to business as usual. |
Let's not light the torches just yet. It's fairly obvious that business as usual is not an option among the people of Egypt, and although the military leaders have no doubt benefitted from their associations with the former regime, their current legitimacy derives from accepting the will of those people. That's actually more analogous to the American Revolution than Iran.
The people interviewed on the street have been virtually unanimous in their desire to see real democracy and avoid extremism or another dictatorship, and some protestors have vowed to maintain their vigils until the military proves sincere in their pledge to guarantee "a peaceful transition of authority in a free democratic framework which allows an elected civilian authority to rule the country, to build a free democratic country." |
I don't think that it's a done deal either way. From what I see, that attitude is one of, "Ooh the bad guy in charge is gone...Egypt is home free." That's dangerous. Egyptians are still a long way from having a free government by the people and there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. |
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02/12/2011 06:45:38 PM · #86 |
Originally posted by Spork99:
Egyptians are still a long way from having a free government by the people and there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. |
You could have said the same thing about the U.S. in the late 1700s. |
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02/12/2011 06:49:40 PM · #87 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Spork99:
Egyptians are still a long way from having a free government by the people and there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. |
You could have said the same thing about the U.S. in the late 1700s. |
David McCullough's 1776 is a good account of how we more or less lucked our way into winning that war. I agree with Spork; though I'm hopeful, the Middle East seems a place where pitfalls abound.
Message edited by author 2011-02-12 23:50:23. |
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02/12/2011 07:14:01 PM · #88 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Spork99:
Egyptians are still a long way from having a free government by the people and there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. |
You could have said the same thing about the U.S. in the late 1700s. |
Unfortunately, even most Americans don't remember that about the U.S. The way most Americans understand it, once the redcoats went home, the country was robust and fully formed.
A big difference is that Americans of that time were generally used to governing themselves, were used to the rule of law along with the rights and responsibilities of freedom. I'm not so sure the same can be said for today's Egyptians...(Even though the colonists were "ruled" by England, they were generally free to do as they wished as long as they paid the King his taxes). The Egyptians got their independence from England in the earlier part of the 20th century, along with their first failed attempt at a democracy.
Message edited by author 2011-02-13 09:40:45. |
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02/13/2011 06:43:12 AM · #89 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Spork99:
Egyptians are still a long way from having a free government by the people and there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. |
You could have said the same thing about the U.S. in the late 1700s. |
And we have now gone almost full circle :( |
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02/13/2011 06:28:10 PM · #90 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Spork99:
Egyptians are still a long way from having a free government by the people and there are plenty of pitfalls along the way. |
You could have said the same thing about the U.S. in the late 1700s. |
And we have now gone almost full circle :( |
You and photodude should have a GTG.
Message edited by author 2011-02-13 23:28:25. |
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02/16/2011 02:02:42 AM · #91 |
Okay, from the recent posts that I read, As a Muslim & an Egyptian, ( and don't take this in a wrong way ) but clearly many of you don't know about Islam, Muslims or Egypt, of course, I blame it on the western media that not only transferred false and deformed information but also switched that false information into opinions and conclusions, but, that's not an excuse, each one of us should separate the information apart form the media conclusions to analysis that info and reject the illogical and false information and see for himself the opposing view and information.
Sadly, the truth is many of Muslims themselves today are not different from you westerns, believe what ever they hear without further checking, how do you think that Egyptians has been ruled for all these years by this trash of people.
About the military council ruling Egypt, what  GeneralE said is true, (( the Egyptian army is a conscript one, with universal (male) service, so "everyone" has a brother, uncle, cousin, or father in the military. If you're a private, who do you listen to, your corporal or your mother ...? ))
if it comes to an order from the army commands to the privates to be aggressive toward the people, not only they'll disobey the order, they'll join demonstrators, all Egyptians know that including the military council which is a part of the past regime that didn't interfere with the civilian people in a direct way (( since we - the civilians - have our own suppression forces the Police )) but anyone from inside would know the amount of corruption inside the army.
So we should separate between two things, the army forces and the military council.
so what the council would deal with the power and people ??? they are trying to buy sometime, thinking that they could control the revolution by time passing, which indicate, that it's not over yet, and there will be another revolution sequence, it's only a matter of time.
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02/20/2011 07:43:06 AM · #92 |
Originally posted by Kliopatra:
... but clearly many of you don't know about Islam ... |
Well you're right, many non-Muslims may not know anything about Islam. Why is that a problem? How many Egyptians or Muslims know about Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism or Sikhism? |
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02/20/2011 08:01:18 AM · #93 |
Originally posted by samanwar:
Originally posted by Kliopatra:
... but clearly many of you don't know about Islam ... |
Well you're right, many non-Muslims may not know anything about Islam. Why is that a problem? |
The problem lies not so much in the not knowing but in the wrong beliefs and lies that grow out of that ignorance. You only have to look at photodude to see how ignorance of Islam combines with his own prejudices and cowardice to become something incredibly hateful and unpleasant. This puts him on equal footing to the fundamentalist extremists he hates so much and sees everywhere. An irony he is far too stupid, or perhaps willfully naive, to realise. |
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02/20/2011 08:40:06 AM · #94 |
Originally posted by clive_patric_nolan:
Originally posted by samanwar:
Originally posted by Kliopatra:
... but clearly many of you don't know about Islam ... |
Well you're right, many non-Muslims may not know anything about Islam. Why is that a problem? |
The problem lies not so much in the not knowing but in the wrong beliefs and lies that grow out of that ignorance. You only have to look at photodude to see how ignorance of Islam combines with his own prejudices and cowardice to become something incredibly hateful and unpleasant. This puts him on equal footing to the fundamentalist extremists he hates so much and sees everywhere. An irony he is far too stupid, or perhaps willfully naive, to realise. |
I have to disclose that I didn't read every post in this thread so I am not sure what photodude have said, but do you equate him based on anything he said to the extremists who are supporting or are willing to commit violence in the name of Allah?
I know that many people have a very negative image of Islam, and I will confess that I am one of those people, but it's because of actions committed by some Muslims (IN THE NAME OF ISLAM), and by the wide support and justification of these actions among some significant scores of Muslims. |
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02/20/2011 08:49:46 AM · #95 |
Originally posted by samanwar:
I have to disclose that I didn't read every post in this thread so I am not sure what photodude have said, but do you equate him based on anything he said to the extremists who are supporting or are willing to commit violence in the name of Allah? |
Yes, i do pretty much. photodude has expressed very extreme views and hatred of Muslims in other threads on this board. Here is a quote from his blog that he linked to...
'We must deal with Islam, just like we dealt Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They must be broken and forced to change their thinking and behavior, just like their predecessors.
It's time to take the gloves off.'
Lot's more of that idiocy on his blog.
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02/20/2011 09:05:51 AM · #96 |
Originally posted by samanwar:
I know that many people have a very negative image of Islam, and I will confess that I am one of those people, but it's because of actions committed by some Muslims (IN THE NAME OF ISLAM), and by the wide support and justification of these actions among some significant scores of Muslims. |
A lot of large groups have small, unpleasant extremist minorities. Are we to blame all Catholics, or Irish, for the numerous I.R.A terrorist attacks? Or blame all Christians for the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church (committed IN THE NAME OF JESUS) ? Or blame all Hindus for the actions of their terrorist groups? etc etc |
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02/20/2011 09:25:24 AM · #97 |
Originally posted by clive_patric_nolan:
Originally posted by samanwar:
I know that many people have a very negative image of Islam, and I will confess that I am one of those people, but it's because of actions committed by some Muslims (IN THE NAME OF ISLAM), and by the wide support and justification of these actions among some significant scores of Muslims. |
A lot of large groups have small, unpleasant extremist minorities. Are we to blame all Catholics, or Irish, for the numerous I.R.A terrorist attacks? Or blame all Christians for the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church (committed IN THE NAME OF JESUS) ? Or blame all Hindus for the actions of their terrorist groups? etc etc |
What make the terror acts committed by the Muslim extremist so much different in the view of many people, is the lack of clear condemnation of these acts by the Muslim community. The scenes that were broadcast from many major cities in the Muslim world of large crowds celebrating in joy after 9/11 is an example. The argument which justifies 9/11 due to the US support for Israel is very popular also. I don't recall seeing thousands of Christians celebrating the Westboro church incident.
I am not attacking all muslims here, I have many moderate muslim friends that I love and respect so much, but I am just trying to point that the muslim community have a lot of work to do to improve their image and erase the growing fear of Islam, way beyond simply attributing it to our ignorance of islam. |
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02/20/2011 02:35:53 PM · #98 |
Originally posted by clive_patric_nolan:
Originally posted by samanwar:
I have to disclose that I didn't read every post in this thread so I am not sure what photodude have said, but do you equate him based on anything he said to the extremists who are supporting or are willing to commit violence in the name of Allah? |
Yes, i do pretty much. photodude has expressed very extreme views and hatred of Muslims in other threads on this board. Here is a quote from his blog that he linked to...
'We must deal with Islam, just like we dealt Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They must be broken and forced to change their thinking and behavior, just like their predecessors.
It's time to take the gloves off.'
Lot's more of that idiocy on his blog. |
Your pretty good at hurling personal insults at me but I have yet to see you write one sentence or paragraph refuting anything I write on this subject as being factually wrong, or there being any other rational ways of dealing with the treat. So, pipe up with something more intellegent than name calling.
Am I wrong, and if so how? Is Islam really a peaceful religion with the terrorists and extremists really only being a very small finge of the followers and almost all Muslims against them? Are we in the west really only being paranoid, and just wasting our money (tens and hundreds of billions of dollars) playing defense - things like virtual strip searches in airports, etc.? Am I mistaken and the Islamic countries of the world are really peaceful democracies? I must be imagining that when a newspaper or writer in the west publishes something they don't like, that fatwah's don't really happen and the writers and publishers have nothing to fear?
Please, tell us how it really is. Perhaps you can cite Neville Chamberlain. |
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02/20/2011 03:30:09 PM · #99 |
Originally posted by samanwar:
Originally posted by clive_patric_nolan:
Originally posted by samanwar:
I know that many people have a very negative image of Islam, and I will confess that I am one of those people, but it's because of actions committed by some Muslims (IN THE NAME OF ISLAM), and by the wide support and justification of these actions among some significant scores of Muslims. |
A lot of large groups have small, unpleasant extremist minorities. Are we to blame all Catholics, or Irish, for the numerous I.R.A terrorist attacks? Or blame all Christians for the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church (committed IN THE NAME OF JESUS) ? Or blame all Hindus for the actions of their terrorist groups? etc etc |
What make the terror acts committed by the Muslim extremist so much different in the view of many people, is the lack of clear condemnation of these acts by the Muslim community. The scenes that were broadcast from many major cities in the Muslim world of large crowds celebrating in joy after 9/11 is an example. The argument which justifies 9/11 due to the US support for Israel is very popular also. I don't recall seeing thousands of Christians celebrating the Westboro church incident.
I am not attacking all muslims here, I have many moderate muslim friends that I love and respect so much, but I am just trying to point that the muslim community have a lot of work to do to improve their image and erase the growing fear of Islam, way beyond simply attributing it to our ignorance of islam. |
that would be expected IF they are PROVED to be committed by Muslims (extremist or not), the investigation of 9/11 for example have what evidence that this was done by Muslims except the planing documents they claim they found in the luggage of the group who committed the crime ( At what logic the planer of such a scheme would have a written document in his luggage that could be caught before they execute), only a fool would believe such nonsense, and the other prove is the confession of Osama bin Ladin on a video tape( the man whom USA itself helped at his early years and provided him with weapons and trained his men to fight the Soviets ) and why would he even execute a complicated inside operation against civilians when it's so much easier and more influential to commit it against army abroad ???
and why would a crime with that magnitude investigation results is not fully published yet to Americans ??? and at what logic you would start a war on a whole country to catch one man and his group before you provide your people with the exact causes of that war ????? and since I asked that, also, At what logic you would start a war on a whole country based on a report that they MAY use a weapon they have against you???? and since I asked that, I should ask this too, US have that same weapons that they claimed that Iraq have, and based on that same war reason, should Muslims start a war against USA ?????
So, before you demand a condemnation from Muslim community with crimes they are not related to and work on what you call (( their image )), maybe you should first prove that these crimes are related to them in any way, I as a Muslim have my own blood being shed and massacres being held against my cousins children everyday and everywhere around me to condemn, that are far more horrifying & hideous than 9/11, and more than what you can imagine, that it would be silly to ask me as a apart of the Muslim community to stop and cry over your own loses, forgive my cruelty if you may call it that but it's the truth, and if we would switch places, you would feel even more bitter and offended than me.
I'm not going to say that USA community should work on their image since what they should do first for their own sake is to work on saving their children ( the soldiers ) and their money from being thrown in an unjustified wars that will not end with any gain for the American people, only loses. |
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02/20/2011 03:50:52 PM · #100 |
Originally posted by clive_patric_nolan:
Originally posted by samanwar:
I have to disclose that I didn't read every post in this thread so I am not sure what photodude have said, but do you equate him based on anything he said to the extremists who are supporting or are willing to commit violence in the name of Allah? |
Yes, i do pretty much. photodude has expressed very extreme views and hatred of Muslims in other threads on this board. Here is a quote from his blog that he linked to...
'We must deal with Islam, just like we dealt Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They must be broken and forced to change their thinking and behavior, just like their predecessors.
It's time to take the gloves off.'
Lot's more of that idiocy on his blog. |
hahhhhhhha, No, that's not what I meant about not knowing about Islam, this goes beyond ignorance, he doesn't even know that the gloves are already off, and that his country is at two wars with Muslim countries, maybe, he's not an American
:) |
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