ArthurRE: PLEASE STOP THE MARQUEE TAG!!!
T5,
My kind of humour in that reply, very nice. That animated GIF btw… grrrrr
ArthurRE: Phonetic alphabet.
The new ´NATO´ alphabet comes from the offices of the ASCC (Air Standards Coordinating Comittee), the same people who thought of the MiG-15 as a Fagot.
ArthurRE: Bases in Europe!!
There are a few defence pacts falling under the EU and not under NATO. The WEU is one, the Dutch-German corps is one, the French-German corps is another one. However, these are still all bilateral treaties, and (apart from the paper-WEU) have no direct linkage to the EU political structure.
ArthurRE: Bases in Europe!!
There are a few defence pacts falling under the EU and not under NATO. The WEU is one, the Dutch-German corps is one, the French-German corps is another one. However, these are still all bilateral treaties, and (apart from the paper-WEU) have no direct linkage to the EU political structure.
ArthurRE: Bases in Europe!!
i asked Eu to Eu country not US forces
Apologies for over-answering. I forgot an EU one: the HQ of the Dutch-German Corps in Münster is for a combined Dutch-German unit. Not too much of an expert on the bellycrawler stuff though.
ArthurRE: Bases in Europe!!
i asked Eu to Eu country not US forces
Apologies for over-answering. I forgot an EU one: the HQ of the Dutch-German Corps in Münster is for a combined Dutch-German unit. Not too much of an expert on the bellycrawler stuff though.
ArthurRE: Another sad, sad day
Why damn, Arthur? Does it bother you that Islam is
connected with this act of violence? Would it be better if
it were the local Hindus or Nazis so you could point at
someone else and say “they also do this?”
The ‘damn’ was because this spoiled my theory, nothing else. However, it does bother me that this violence is again connected with Islam even before any serious clues led in that direction. People seem all to trigger happy to point the finger at ‘Islam.’ While they can very well be right, i would like both a little restraint with such accusations (the Oklahoma bombing was almost immediately connected with Muslem extremists as well), and i hate it when people say ‘Muslems’ when they refer to ‘militant Muslem extremists.’
No one is accusing Islam of being the only religion which
is violent. But to be truthful it is far more violent than
Buddhism or Hinduism. I cannot understand this repeated
urge to condemn others to divert attention from the case at
hand.
Hinduism has it’s militant factions. Buddhism doesn’t really have the doctrine to be a militant religion in itself, but the Pol Pot-collectivism in Cambodia during the late 1970s certainly has it’s roots in some Buddhist principles. I don’t make this statement to make up for the violence the world has seen in the last 30 years in name of Allah, i just want to put violence and terrorism under cover of religion into context. Making statements like “Hey, it’s the Allah-guys again, let’s kill ’em before they kill us!” is IMHO on the same level of intolerance and self-righteousness as any political, social or religious extremist. Including Islamist.
200 young people were blown up in Bali and what you want
to say is look at this Christian tinpot in Africa as if to
comment what happened in Indonesia wasn’t all that bad
because everyone else is doing it.
Nope, it’s just that we suddenly care when it’s people of our own cultural and ethnical background are killed, preferably by a party we already know to be ‘evil’. We don’t care if equally innocent and young people have their skulls split by machetes if they are not white, and certainly not if the agressors in this case are under the same God as that one particulair nation proclaims itself to be. It is equally bad. Call your God Allah, Shiwa or Bog for all i care, if you commit atrocities under his/His (the capital for all you non-heathens/atheists/agnosticist around here) name it is equally bad. And it happens in almost all, especially in messianic religions as you yourself have pointed out.
Okay, then why don’t we look at the 500,000 Chinese who
were killed in Indonesia during the 1960s by Indonesian
muslims?
Because those 500.000 Chinese were of course killed by the US-backed Suharto in his struggle against Communism. Tsk… religion wasn’t an issue here. At least as far as the West was considered back then.
Or the 500,000 Christians killed in East Timor by
Indonesian muslims.
Calling this a purely religious conflict is way too easy. You know very well that there were quite a few other factors involved as well.
Or the murder and slavery of black Christians in Sudan by
Arabic speaking muslims.
You mean those peacefully Christened Africans, or those forced to become Christian because otherwise they’d find themselves shipped to a certain market? Again, there’s much more to this conflict than Islam vs. Christianity or Animism here. Don’t make the classical mistake of giving each and every conflict a single reason. Marxists used to blame socio-economic reasons for each and every war, people with racist obsessions make everything a racial war, historians give nice historical reasons without looking at the present, and at this moment in time it’s good fashion to give each and every conflict a religious background. Nice to make things comprehendable for the conveniently ignorant, but not if you want to present yourself as well-informed.
What about the Christians in Pakistan killed last month?
Absolutely horrible, i agree. Yet to me it doesn’t prove Islam is inherintly more violent than Christianity. Unless you have the courage to take that statement a little further, and say that Muslems in general are more frustrated than the general Christian?
Why is it sickening to point out that the radical wing of
Islam is extremely violent and bigoted?
The attacks in Uganda are sickening was what i meant. Butchering Rwanda-style. I would call pointing out “that the radical wing of
Islam is extremely violent and bigoted” more something like blunt, or only a starting point to get a more serious look on the current situation with Islamic extremists.
Messianic religions like Christianity and Islam are not
tolerent faiths. You are either a believer or you are an
infidel. But the fundamentalist wing of Islam, right now
has far greater hold in muslim lands and populations than
the fundamentalist Christianity has in Christian majority
ones.
Until the mid-1600s, Islam was by far more tolerant than Christianity. The Christians needed to eradicate whole areas of Europe before finding out that a little tolerance might be helpful – and still, Northern Ireland is (bluntly stated of course) an inter-Christian religious conflict.
Western societies for all intent and purposes are
secular.
“One nation under God.” I beg your sarcasm 😉
There are no constant calls for crusades as there
are incessant calls for jihads and fatwas. It fact, the
separation between church and state in Western societies are
enforced by law.
Okay… but then, why does the German state levy religious taxes? Why is the Queen of England also the head of the Anglican Church? Western society is by name secular, but their (our) culture is so heavily based on the Christian-Jewish tradition that it could easily be misinterpreted by a poor-educated Muslem peasant (especially with a cunning anti-Western Imam with a smart hidden agenda).
I’m an atheist. To me, religions and ideologies are the
same. They both present sets of beliefs. If it is okay to
condemn Nazism and dictatorial Communism then it is okay
condemn wahhabism which preaches death to infidels and
martyrdom through mass murder.
Sets of belief are one thing, interpretation of that is another. Forcing others to agree with your interpretation of your particulair belief is what I condemn, be that nazism (for me personally the only ideology which I condemn on forehand because it refuses to accept certain individuals no matter what, none of the other ideologies are that rigid in judging individuals – perhaps maybe full-blown Catholicism). I condemn dictatorial communism and wahhabism because of their actions, not because of their ideologies. Believe what you want, just don’t force it upon others.
Fundamentalist Islam, like fundamentalist Christianity, is not tolerent, not matter how you try to convince people
otherwise. They are finding this out in Holland too. Gays,
other minorities and women feel discriminated against in
muslim dominated areas.
The painstaking process of integration. Do you know how tough life for Protestants was in a Catholic area of the Netherlands as late as the early 1960s?
Remember Pim Fortuyn? He and his supporters weren’t your
average right winger. His party composed of blacks, gays,
women and working class with socialist leanings. Pim
himself was gay.
Yet Fortuyn managed to gather your archetypical right-wing public: small entrepreneurs, xenophobes and dissatisfied working-class individuals. The same bunch of people who like to follow your everyday charismatic, eloquent and inconsistent leader appearing not to be from the establishment.
Islam in Asia had been moderate and tolerent. Iran,
Afghanistan, Malaysia and the Central Asian republics were
traditionally moderate societies. But we saw what happened
when Middle-east inspired wahhabism takes over.
And now you should ask yourself how it could happen that moderate Islamic societies at some stage accepted intolerant Wahhabism. Purely on religious grounds? I doubt it.
We saw a people blowing up its own heritage at the Buddhas
of Bamiyan because there is no place for any other beliefs
in their world. This, my friend, is intolerance.
Technically the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed because of the ban on making images of humans (and animals too? Not sure) in Islam. Interestingly, you can find similar rules in Christian and Jewish scriptures. Yes, destroying those sculptures was an act of intolerant barbarism by a bunch of Islamic-cult-inspired thugs who suddenly found themselves in control of a country. But i wouldn’t want to see extremist Christians, Jews, Animist or Hindus in a comparible situation.
I understand what you are trying to say and i believe some of your first statements against Islam were a lot less discriminate as you intended to be (correct me if i’m wrong), but i do not agree with you that Islam as a religion is inherently more violent than other (messianic) religions, nor that religion is the only cause for this violence. It’s not the cause, it’s the excuse.
ArthurRE: Another sad, sad day
Why damn, Arthur? Does it bother you that Islam is
connected with this act of violence? Would it be better if
it were the local Hindus or Nazis so you could point at
someone else and say “they also do this?”
The ‘damn’ was because this spoiled my theory, nothing else. However, it does bother me that this violence is again connected with Islam even before any serious clues led in that direction. People seem all to trigger happy to point the finger at ‘Islam.’ While they can very well be right, i would like both a little restraint with such accusations (the Oklahoma bombing was almost immediately connected with Muslem extremists as well), and i hate it when people say ‘Muslems’ when they refer to ‘militant Muslem extremists.’
No one is accusing Islam of being the only religion which
is violent. But to be truthful it is far more violent than
Buddhism or Hinduism. I cannot understand this repeated
urge to condemn others to divert attention from the case at
hand.
Hinduism has it’s militant factions. Buddhism doesn’t really have the doctrine to be a militant religion in itself, but the Pol Pot-collectivism in Cambodia during the late 1970s certainly has it’s roots in some Buddhist principles. I don’t make this statement to make up for the violence the world has seen in the last 30 years in name of Allah, i just want to put violence and terrorism under cover of religion into context. Making statements like “Hey, it’s the Allah-guys again, let’s kill ’em before they kill us!” is IMHO on the same level of intolerance and self-righteousness as any political, social or religious extremist. Including Islamist.
200 young people were blown up in Bali and what you want
to say is look at this Christian tinpot in Africa as if to
comment what happened in Indonesia wasn’t all that bad
because everyone else is doing it.
Nope, it’s just that we suddenly care when it’s people of our own cultural and ethnical background are killed, preferably by a party we already know to be ‘evil’. We don’t care if equally innocent and young people have their skulls split by machetes if they are not white, and certainly not if the agressors in this case are under the same God as that one particulair nation proclaims itself to be. It is equally bad. Call your God Allah, Shiwa or Bog for all i care, if you commit atrocities under his/His (the capital for all you non-heathens/atheists/agnosticist around here) name it is equally bad. And it happens in almost all, especially in messianic religions as you yourself have pointed out.
Okay, then why don’t we look at the 500,000 Chinese who
were killed in Indonesia during the 1960s by Indonesian
muslims?
Because those 500.000 Chinese were of course killed by the US-backed Suharto in his struggle against Communism. Tsk… religion wasn’t an issue here. At least as far as the West was considered back then.
Or the 500,000 Christians killed in East Timor by
Indonesian muslims.
Calling this a purely religious conflict is way too easy. You know very well that there were quite a few other factors involved as well.
Or the murder and slavery of black Christians in Sudan by
Arabic speaking muslims.
You mean those peacefully Christened Africans, or those forced to become Christian because otherwise they’d find themselves shipped to a certain market? Again, there’s much more to this conflict than Islam vs. Christianity or Animism here. Don’t make the classical mistake of giving each and every conflict a single reason. Marxists used to blame socio-economic reasons for each and every war, people with racist obsessions make everything a racial war, historians give nice historical reasons without looking at the present, and at this moment in time it’s good fashion to give each and every conflict a religious background. Nice to make things comprehendable for the conveniently ignorant, but not if you want to present yourself as well-informed.
What about the Christians in Pakistan killed last month?
Absolutely horrible, i agree. Yet to me it doesn’t prove Islam is inherintly more violent than Christianity. Unless you have the courage to take that statement a little further, and say that Muslems in general are more frustrated than the general Christian?
Why is it sickening to point out that the radical wing of
Islam is extremely violent and bigoted?
The attacks in Uganda are sickening was what i meant. Butchering Rwanda-style. I would call pointing out “that the radical wing of
Islam is extremely violent and bigoted” more something like blunt, or only a starting point to get a more serious look on the current situation with Islamic extremists.
Messianic religions like Christianity and Islam are not
tolerent faiths. You are either a believer or you are an
infidel. But the fundamentalist wing of Islam, right now
has far greater hold in muslim lands and populations than
the fundamentalist Christianity has in Christian majority
ones.
Until the mid-1600s, Islam was by far more tolerant than Christianity. The Christians needed to eradicate whole areas of Europe before finding out that a little tolerance might be helpful – and still, Northern Ireland is (bluntly stated of course) an inter-Christian religious conflict.
Western societies for all intent and purposes are
secular.
“One nation under God.” I beg your sarcasm 😉
There are no constant calls for crusades as there
are incessant calls for jihads and fatwas. It fact, the
separation between church and state in Western societies are
enforced by law.
Okay… but then, why does the German state levy religious taxes? Why is the Queen of England also the head of the Anglican Church? Western society is by name secular, but their (our) culture is so heavily based on the Christian-Jewish tradition that it could easily be misinterpreted by a poor-educated Muslem peasant (especially with a cunning anti-Western Imam with a smart hidden agenda).
I’m an atheist. To me, religions and ideologies are the
same. They both present sets of beliefs. If it is okay to
condemn Nazism and dictatorial Communism then it is okay
condemn wahhabism which preaches death to infidels and
martyrdom through mass murder.
Sets of belief are one thing, interpretation of that is another. Forcing others to agree with your interpretation of your particulair belief is what I condemn, be that nazism (for me personally the only ideology which I condemn on forehand because it refuses to accept certain individuals no matter what, none of the other ideologies are that rigid in judging individuals – perhaps maybe full-blown Catholicism). I condemn dictatorial communism and wahhabism because of their actions, not because of their ideologies. Believe what you want, just don’t force it upon others.
Fundamentalist Islam, like fundamentalist Christianity, is not tolerent, not matter how you try to convince people
otherwise. They are finding this out in Holland too. Gays,
other minorities and women feel discriminated against in
muslim dominated areas.
The painstaking process of integration. Do you know how tough life for Protestants was in a Catholic area of the Netherlands as late as the early 1960s?
Remember Pim Fortuyn? He and his supporters weren’t your
average right winger. His party composed of blacks, gays,
women and working class with socialist leanings. Pim
himself was gay.
Yet Fortuyn managed to gather your archetypical right-wing public: small entrepreneurs, xenophobes and dissatisfied working-class individuals. The same bunch of people who like to follow your everyday charismatic, eloquent and inconsistent leader appearing not to be from the establishment.
Islam in Asia had been moderate and tolerent. Iran,
Afghanistan, Malaysia and the Central Asian republics were
traditionally moderate societies. But we saw what happened
when Middle-east inspired wahhabism takes over.
And now you should ask yourself how it could happen that moderate Islamic societies at some stage accepted intolerant Wahhabism. Purely on religious grounds? I doubt it.
We saw a people blowing up its own heritage at the Buddhas
of Bamiyan because there is no place for any other beliefs
in their world. This, my friend, is intolerance.
Technically the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed because of the ban on making images of humans (and animals too? Not sure) in Islam. Interestingly, you can find similar rules in Christian and Jewish scriptures. Yes, destroying those sculptures was an act of intolerant barbarism by a bunch of Islamic-cult-inspired thugs who suddenly found themselves in control of a country. But i wouldn’t want to see extremist Christians, Jews, Animist or Hindus in a comparible situation.
I understand what you are trying to say and i believe some of your first statements against Islam were a lot less discriminate as you intended to be (correct me if i’m wrong), but i do not agree with you that Islam as a religion is inherently more violent than other (messianic) religions, nor that religion is the only cause for this violence. It’s not the cause, it’s the excuse.
ArthurRE: Bases in Europe!!
Here in the Netherlands we have:
– German Luftwaffe barracks at Budel
– NATO HQ at Brunssum (multinational)
– US barracks at Schinnen
Belgium:
– NATO HQ Brussels, undoubtedly more.
France:
– USAF U-2R detachment at Istres, probably more
Italy:
– US bases Aviano (USAF), Piacenza (USAr), Naples, Sigonella (both USN).
Greece:
– US RC-135 detachment at Souda, Crete and fleet facilities at Souda Bay.
Iceland:
– Rotations of USAF F-15 detachments USN P-3C deployments and a HH-60 unit and some USN support stuff.
Portugal:
– USAF presence at Lajes.
Spain:
– USN VQ-2 and support facilities at Rota.
Turkey:
– US and RAF deployments to Incirlik (and Diyarbakir?).
Germany of course has a lot: there are still British, Canadian, French (non-NATO), Dutch, Belgian and US troops stationed there. Of particular interest in this is the NAEWF component at Geilenkirchen which is officially Luxembourg AF, but consists of personell of all NATO countries except the UK and the US (a few E-3A crews actually have both Turkish and Greek crewmembers). This NAEWF has again multinational permanently manned detachments at Prevesa (Greece) and Orland (Norway).
ArthurRE: Bases in Europe!!
Here in the Netherlands we have:
– German Luftwaffe barracks at Budel
– NATO HQ at Brunssum (multinational)
– US barracks at Schinnen
Belgium:
– NATO HQ Brussels, undoubtedly more.
France:
– USAF U-2R detachment at Istres, probably more
Italy:
– US bases Aviano (USAF), Piacenza (USAr), Naples, Sigonella (both USN).
Greece:
– US RC-135 detachment at Souda, Crete and fleet facilities at Souda Bay.
Iceland:
– Rotations of USAF F-15 detachments USN P-3C deployments and a HH-60 unit and some USN support stuff.
Portugal:
– USAF presence at Lajes.
Spain:
– USN VQ-2 and support facilities at Rota.
Turkey:
– US and RAF deployments to Incirlik (and Diyarbakir?).
Germany of course has a lot: there are still British, Canadian, French (non-NATO), Dutch, Belgian and US troops stationed there. Of particular interest in this is the NAEWF component at Geilenkirchen which is officially Luxembourg AF, but consists of personell of all NATO countries except the UK and the US (a few E-3A crews actually have both Turkish and Greek crewmembers). This NAEWF has again multinational permanently manned detachments at Prevesa (Greece) and Orland (Norway).
ArthurRE: Another sad, sad day
“…of course they are going to go out and
kneecap a few Aussie tourists first because they drove down
the wrong street and answered anything other than catholic
when asked their religion.”
You remember that one? It happened in the town where i used to live back then (in Roermond, the Netherlands) in 1988. Two Australian tourists were killed by bullets from an IRA AK after getting out of a (rental) car with an English license plate. In name of Catholicism, of course (hey, I was raised Catholic: the Catholics have the best God… bollocks!).
Of course lots of people would like to explain this attack the easy way and hence point the finger at Al Qaida or (sickeningly) Islam in general. I haven’t yet seen any serious claims for the attack from that side yet.
But what about the theory that the attack was dedicated to Australia as a reaction to that country’s effort in Eastern Timor? In the latter case, one could suspect the attackers to be from a particularly grudged and frustrated section of the Indonesian military…
Damn, just checked the newswires. Al Qaida is responsible, according to an Abu Hamza al-Masri, a London-resident Islamic cleric with connections to Al Qaida. Okay, so i was wrong… sorry, i liked the theory though.
Anyway, before people continue accusing Islam for being the only religion resorting to indiscriminate violence: just today, the (Christian) Lord Resistance Army in Uganda has killed at least 131 women and children in the villages of Aymel and Lapono. Onward, ye Christian soldiers… sickening.
ArthurRE: Another sad, sad day
“…of course they are going to go out and
kneecap a few Aussie tourists first because they drove down
the wrong street and answered anything other than catholic
when asked their religion.”
You remember that one? It happened in the town where i used to live back then (in Roermond, the Netherlands) in 1988. Two Australian tourists were killed by bullets from an IRA AK after getting out of a (rental) car with an English license plate. In name of Catholicism, of course (hey, I was raised Catholic: the Catholics have the best God… bollocks!).
Of course lots of people would like to explain this attack the easy way and hence point the finger at Al Qaida or (sickeningly) Islam in general. I haven’t yet seen any serious claims for the attack from that side yet.
But what about the theory that the attack was dedicated to Australia as a reaction to that country’s effort in Eastern Timor? In the latter case, one could suspect the attackers to be from a particularly grudged and frustrated section of the Indonesian military…
Damn, just checked the newswires. Al Qaida is responsible, according to an Abu Hamza al-Masri, a London-resident Islamic cleric with connections to Al Qaida. Okay, so i was wrong… sorry, i liked the theory though.
Anyway, before people continue accusing Islam for being the only religion resorting to indiscriminate violence: just today, the (Christian) Lord Resistance Army in Uganda has killed at least 131 women and children in the villages of Aymel and Lapono. Onward, ye Christian soldiers… sickening.
ArthurRE: A few things – but one thing in particular..
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 09-10-02 AT 02:53 PM (GMT)]What i don’t like about the Netherlands? Well, take more or less the opposite of what Shorty says and that’s basically my view… (no offence Shorty!).
What i don’t like about the Netherlands:
[li]A general holier-than-thou attitude (I know, St. Arthur is guilty of that one too 😉 ).
[li]An epidemic not-in-my-backyard mentality
[li]Shortsightedness
[li]Intolerance (as a society the Netherlands are very tolerant, but on an individual level people are definately not)
[li]Lack of straightforwardness. People usually act very friendly, but behind your back…
[li]Lack of self-criticism. This one is dedicated to all those who voted LPF }> }> }> That party is about as stable as the late Pim Fortuyn’s views 😀
[li]Ignorance and twisting truths as fact. Apologies if you feel offended Shorty, but you gave a nice example of this on the Dutch green party Groen Links: they are not the former communist, they emerged as a union from three older left-wing parties, one of which was about half of the then existing Communist Party of the Netherlands.
[li]The general small-town grocer’s mentality. Oh no, that is what made this country big. Big? Euhhh….
ArthurRE: A few things – but one thing in particular..
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 09-10-02 AT 02:53 PM (GMT)]What i don’t like about the Netherlands? Well, take more or less the opposite of what Shorty says and that’s basically my view… (no offence Shorty!).
What i don’t like about the Netherlands:
[li]A general holier-than-thou attitude (I know, St. Arthur is guilty of that one too 😉 ).
[li]An epidemic not-in-my-backyard mentality
[li]Shortsightedness
[li]Intolerance (as a society the Netherlands are very tolerant, but on an individual level people are definately not)
[li]Lack of straightforwardness. People usually act very friendly, but behind your back…
[li]Lack of self-criticism. This one is dedicated to all those who voted LPF }> }> }> That party is about as stable as the late Pim Fortuyn’s views 😀
[li]Ignorance and twisting truths as fact. Apologies if you feel offended Shorty, but you gave a nice example of this on the Dutch green party Groen Links: they are not the former communist, they emerged as a union from three older left-wing parties, one of which was about half of the then existing Communist Party of the Netherlands.
[li]The general small-town grocer’s mentality. Oh no, that is what made this country big. Big? Euhhh….
ArthurRE: What car do you currently drive?
My crusty old Peugot 205 is just back from the mechanic today (the clutch & gearbox-God seems to have a grudge against me), so it’ll have to soldier on for some time again now…
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