"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...
On 8/29/2010 9:29 AM, Robert Green wrote:
"Mysterious wrote in message
news:376dnb9-

stuff snipped

You might find yourself in a situation
someday where you need help and a little kindness from a caring person
could be just what you need to get by. That's what makes the Christian
religion better than Islam. Islam doesn't have any outreach programs
for
people who need help. If one of them gets in a situation where their
life is messed up, they're shunned, banned, stoned to death, outcast,
as
far as they care, you don't exist.

While I'm not a lover of any organized religion (especially Islam), I'm
afraid I've got to call you out on this last statement. One of Islam's
"five pillars" (the third one) is all about charity:

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/46/

"Giving charity to those who deserve it is part of Muslim character
and
one of the Five Pillars of Islamic practice. Zakat is viewed as
“compulsory
charity”; it is an obligation for those who have received their wealth
from
God to respond to those members of the community in need."

Islam did not begin compulsory charity. Judaism has the tzedakah which
both
obligates the wealthy to give to the poor and affirms the right of the
poor
to receive these gifts. It is more a duty than an option. The Jews are
supposed to gave to all those in need, both neighbors and strangers. In
both religions (not surprisingly since they are descendants of Abraham)
it
was your duty, if blessed, to bless others - to give away some of what
God
gave to you.

When Christ came along, he broadened the original Jewish view of
charity.
The needs of the poor became the responsibility of everyone, not just
the
wealthy. Many consider this the birth of modern social welfare, both
public
and private.
When Islam was born, Jewish and Christian philosophy heavily influenced
early Muslim thought. The Muslims divided charitable giving into two
types:
the compulsory giving (zakat) and voluntary giving (sadaqah) for social
welfare.

That said, I still worry profoundly about the aspects of Islamic culture
that are at loggerheads with our own beliefs, particularly freedom of
speech. We can show a South Park episode making fun of Jesus with
little
fanfare, but when Mohammed is ridiculed, fanatical Muslims go on killing
sprees. The issue now is that we've allowed enough Muslims into the
country
to make it a problem that has very few good solutions. Remember,
though, a
lot of Muslims are here to escape the fanatical regimes of their home
lands.
Many have been of great assistance in tracking down their hard-core
brethren
because they know fanatics are a threat to them as well as us
non-Muslims.

I believe that most Muslims, like most Christians, are very, very
uncomfortable at seeing disparaging representations of their spiritual
leaders, but they wouldn't kill over it. It's the idiotic few that make
trouble for the rest. I do have a great fear that all this hatred will
become the foundation for a third WW. We've repeated Vietnam, we've
come
awfully close to repeating the Great Depression. WWIII could easily be
the
next on this list of "stupid things humanity does repeatedly." It's why
I'd
much rather find a way to iron out our differences peacefully. There
have
been long epochs of peace in the world - but it takes determination to
achieve such peace.

What worries me the most is how easily people use terms like "the war on
terror" as if it were a real war. Real wars are the ones where you wake
up
in the morning wondering whether you and your family will be dragged out
of
your house and be shot that day, or be dragged off to a resettlement
camp or
find yourselves with new, unelected leaders determined to eventually
drive
you from your homes and quite possibly to your graves.

Real war is men and women eating rats and sawdust bread during the siege
of
Stalingrad. It's V1 and V2 rockets and waves of heavy bombers flying
over
Britain, night after night, killing thousands and terrorizing millions.
Real war is having your entire city (Dresden, Hiroshima, London, Berlin
or
Tokyo) nearly burned to the ground. Real war is losing everything you
hold
dear: your family, your possessions, your house, your town, your
country
and your entire way of life. Despite Pearl Harbor, the WTC and even the
British invasion and burning of the Whitehouse, the US has NOT
experienced
the worst effects of real war. We've always managed to fight them on
someone ELSE'S home ground.

Ask an elderly Russian, Brit, German, Japanese person about the horrors
of
war. When I see History Channel shows about WWII, I am always amazed at
how
these old soldiers still choke up in tears when they remember the horror
of
a real war. How they cry like babies when they think of young friends
who
fought and died by their side. Dead friends who never had the chance to
build a life, a family or a career because they got their heads blown
off on
some dinky little South Pacific island covered in black sand and
worthless,
except as a grave for thousands of poor kids from Brooklyn, from Omaha,
from
little towns and farms all across the country. I always wonder who died
out
there in those bug-infested jungles: The guy who would have cured
cancer?
The guy who would have discovered a new, pollution free energy source?
The
next Abraham Lincoln? We'll never know for sure, but based on how many
already successful people died in the war, we've certainly robbed
ourselves
of at least a few great men.

I wasn't really a peacenik until I married an Army reservist. Now that
I've
met a lot of her friends I realize that people who are willing to die to
protect our country and way of life are a precious resource that we
shouldn't squander chasing shadows or acting out political agendas.
Contrary to the insane assertions I've read here that "people join the
military to kill, kill, kill", my wife joined to help, help, help and
became
an expert at civil affairs and rebuilding war-ravaged countries. I've
seen
her cry for days on end when someone in her unit or an old friend is
killed.
Many of them were fellow Reservists, away from their "day job" here in
the
states and definitely not special operators straight out of a Hollywood
movie, anxious to die in glory. They weren't even professional
soldiers.
They were managers, cops, welders, nurses and engineers who had joined
to be
emergency "muscle" but turned out to be primary war fighters in the new
all-volunteer Army. Sorry to hit you with this sermon, but it's been
simmering for a while since I read those comments about "they
volunteered,
so it's OK for them to die."

The Pakistan floods, as terrible as they are, represent an enormous
opportunity to reach out to Islam and show that we know how to help.
Nothing builds allies more than offering a hand to people when they are
so
deeply in need. That's REAL nation building, not forcing democracy on
people from the barrel of a gun. South Korea treats at least some
American
veterans of the Korean conflict better than we do.

--
Bobby G.



Bob, did you not hear the news about aid workers being threatened with
death if they showed up in Pakistan? When Americans have given food and
other aid to Muslims in that part of the world, the radical groups will
show up, take it all away and burn it. How are you going to help people
who shield terrorists out of either fear or brotherhood?

If we don't help because they've threatened our aid workers, we are allowing
a bunch of mud-sucking terrorists to dictate terms to the most powerful
nation on earth. Uh uh. No deal. This may surprise you but there are
people willing to jump on a plane and help set up water purification plants,
emergency shelters, sanitation facilities and more at a moment's notice,
even with the knowledge it may cost them their lives. Some of them do it in
the name of their god, some in the name of their country and some because
they just think it's the right thing to do - to help fellow humans in need.

Terrorists killing aid workers is very bad press for radical Islam. That's
no certain protection for aid workers, but so far, these futher-muckers have
used the press as a potent weapon and to their great advantage. Attacking
soldiers makes them believe they look brave. Attacking unarmed aid workers
makes them look like murdering thugs, not heroes, even to their own.
Besides, we have that whole corridor within drone range. At least a few aid
teams will be "plain clothes" special ops, I'm sure. This is an
opportunity, despite the risk, to take a lot of the air out of the
terrorist's sails. I really do fear that we're on the flight path to
another world war, if only because we've forgotten how horrible war really
is. Helping people to overcome a natural disaster does exactly what we want
to do - have a positive influence in that corner of the world.

We tend to think these places we fight in are as civilized as we are, but
the truth is that rural Pakistan is like the old Wild, Wild west in America.
There's *some* law, but not very much, people farm the earth, they tend
cattle, they are quite susceptible to the power of organized evil. Have you
ever wondered why people shielded Bonnie & Clyde in the '30s the way the
James Gang decades before? They do it because they know the price of NOT
doing it.

Here are some quotes from an article in today's Washington Post. "In the
summer of 2006, Maj. Walt Cooper was convinced that his Special Forces
team's work was only contributing to the violence spiraling out of control
in Baghdad. . . . If Iraq is to teach us anything, it must be that a new
idea cannot be beat into a society," Cooper wrote in an e-mail in 2006.
Today the former Rhodes scholar is finishing a doctorate at Harvard and
teaching at West Point. For him and others of his generation, it is the dark
days of the war, more than the successes of 2007, that dominate their
memories of Iraq."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

We can't beat democracy into them. But we can show them that our country
has so much wealth and so many caring people that we can afford to come help
them when their own government is overwhelmed. I have never forgotten the
people who went out of their way to help me when I was down. I'll bet that
neither have you. It's human nature. I've *really* never forgotten those
people who have put themselves at personal risk to help me. This is the
opportunity to make life-long friends that often presents itself in a time
of crisis.

Have you
forgotten the doctors who were murdered in Afghanistan by Muslims who
claimed the doctors were trying to convert the people to Christianity?

No. They knew they were involved in a risky operation. It's a shame they
died, but to pull out because thugs do evil things is to cede to world to
thugs and their ilk. That's the worse possible choice.

How do you go about nation building when there is someone standing by to
tear it all down as soon as you turn your back?

"Though violent incidents are reported every year, murder is a rare
occurrence. According to an annual report called “Safety of Volunteer,
2007,” 21 Peace Corps volunteers had been killed between 1961 and 2007."

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/...ccurrence.html

Yes, these people do face risks, but their work has great effect on the
people they help. The same question could be asked of the entire mission.
If they all are Islamic devils, why have we spent a trillion dollars trying
to democratize them? Clearly our own leaders know there's a difference
between fanatical Islam and peaceful Islam. To blame all Islam is like
saying the US Army is a terrorist organization because McVeigh was a vet,
the Ft. Hood shooter was Army and so was the guy who fed Wikileaks. Do the
actions of a few total idiots who were in the Army make all Army soldiers
terrorists? Of course not. The same is true of Islam.

I don't know the
answer of how to help crazy people, do you?

I've seen hours of video footage. The thugs come out at night; they are
not the cattle herders, the shopkeepers and the farmers that are all
suffering. They may come from those villages and move freely through them,
but thugs are usually parasites, and they feed off the plain, everyday folks
that are trying to stay alive and fed and to keep their babies from dying
from dysentery. It is during times like these where common people can see
the evil of their terrorist brethren who are willing to take the food and
water out of their baby's mouths to make a little political capital. It is
a remarkable opportunity to advance our message. It also says we believe so
much in what we are doing that we are willing to accept casualties to help
those in need and that terrorists thugs won't scare us off. It's a far
different statement than kicking someone's door in at 3AM to search their
houses.

Soldiers assigned to Iraq say much the same as the soldiers in the article:
"I can only imagine the terror we inflict on innocent families when suddenly
they have a squad of soldiers breaking through their door with weapons at
the ready," he wrote December e-mail to his parents. To Thoreen's unceasing
surprise, the Iraqis often asked the uninvited Americans to sit for tea. The
young officer always declined." The saddest part is that the people who
form the closest bonds with Americans are often killed for it by terrorists
to set an example.

The article also refutes some bad information posted here about retention
rates: "Almost 60 percent of Da Silva's West Point classmates left the Army
after their initial five-year commitment, one of the highest voluntary
attrition rates since the Vietnam War. . . . For the first time in its
history the Army had begun offering captains a $35,000 bonus in exchange for
three more years of service."

--
Bobby G.

h wrote:
"cjt" wrote in message
...

So it's just an excuse to act as a support group? They why the god
stuff?

Simple. They are incapable of doing the right thing just because it's
right. They need the fear of doG to be "scared" into doing the right
thing because they have no character or moral code. Mindless zombie
robots all.

Could be. But it's also to learn what is or is not right.

For example: "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an
abhorrence."

Without that bit of guidance, who knows what the world would be like!

Ok, can't even quote the homophoic bull****. DIE doofus, DIE!

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
h wrote:
"cjt" wrote in message
...

So it's just an excuse to act as a support group? They why the god
stuff?

Simple. They are incapable of doing the right thing just because it's
right. They need the fear of doG to be "scared" into doing the right
thing because they have no character or moral code. Mindless zombie
robots all.

Could be. But it's also to learn what is or is not right.

For example: "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an
abhorrence."

Without that bit of guidance, who knows what the world would be like!

Probably just the way it is, seeing as no one paid that rule any attention.

Steve

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