TINNY

I know a lot of cases in Iraq where a sunni man is married to a shiite woman. This might also be the case in Iran too. Would a shiite really want to kill her own husband? The following Reuters report raises some disturbing questions. Why were undercover British "soldiers" wearing traditional Arab headscarves firing at Iraqi police? The incident took place just prior to a major religious event in Basra. The report suggests that the police thought the British soldiers looked "suspicious". What was the nature of their mission? Occupation forces are supposesd to be collaborating with Iraqi authorities. Why did Britsh Forces have to storm the prison using tanks and armoured vehicles to liberate the British undercover agents? "British forces used up to 10 tanks " supported by helicopters " to smash through the walls of the jail and free the two British servicemen." Was there concern that the British "soldiers" who were being held by the Iraqi National Guard would be obliged to reveal the nature and objective of their undercover mission? A report of Al Jazeera TV, which preceeded the raid on the prison, suggests that the British undercover soldiers were driving a booby trapped car loaded with ammunition. The Al Jazeera report (see below) also suggests that the riots directed against British military presence were motivated because the British undercover soldiers were planning to explode the booby trapped car in the centre of Basra: [Anchorman Al-Habib al-Ghuraybi] We have with us on the telephone from Baghdad Fattah al-Shaykh, member of the Iraqi National Assembly. What are the details of and the facts surrounding this incident? [Al-Shaykh] In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. There have been continuous provocative acts since the day before yesterday by the British forces against the peaceful sons of Basra. There have been indiscriminate arrests, the most recent of which was the arrest of Shaykh Ahmad al-Farqusi and two Basra citizens on the pretext that they had carried out terrorist operations to kill US soldiers. This is a baseless claim. This was confirmed to us by [name indistinct] the second secretary at the British Embassy in Baghdad, when we met with him a short while ago. He said that there is evidence on this. We say: You should come up with this evidence or forget about this issue. If you really want to look for truth, then we should resort to the Iraqi justice away from the British provocations against the sons of Basra, particularly what happened today when the sons of Basra caught two non-Iraqis, who seem to be Britons and were in a car of the Cressida type. It was a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition and was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra in the popular market. However, the sons of the city of Basra arrested them. They [the two non-Iraqis] then fired at the people there and killed some of them. The two arrested persons are now at the Intelligence Department in Basra, and they were held by the National Guard force, but the British occupation forces are still surrounding this department in an attempt to absolve them of the crime. [Al-Ghuraybi] Thank you Fattah al-Shaykh, member of the National Assembly and deputy for Basra. Text of report by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 19 September (emphasis added) Is this an isolated incident or is part of a pattern? More significantly, have the occupation forces been involved in similar undercover missions? Syrian TV (Sept 19, 2005) reports the following: Ten Iraqis - seven police commandos, two civilians and a child - were killed and more than 10 others wounded in the explosion of two car bombs near two checkpoints in Al-Mahmudiyah and Al-Latifiyah south of Baghdad while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were heading towards the city of Karbala to mark the anniversary of a religious event. And in a significant incident in the city of Basra, which is also marking the same religious event, Iraqi demonstrators set fire to two British tanks near a police station after Iraqi police had arrested two British soldiers disguised in civilian clothes for opening fire on police. Eight armoured British vehicles surrounded the police station before the eruption of the confrontations. A policeman at the scene said the two detained Britons were wearing traditional Iraqi jallabahs [loose cloaks] and wigs. [italics added] An indepth independent inquiry should be ordered by Britain's House of Commons into the circumstances of this event.

So far, I haven't come across a single islamic website that demands muslims to wage a holy war against danish civilians. The modernists appear to urge Muslims to just let it by, while traditionalist/fundamentalist groups are pushing for a boycott of Danish products. Those who advocate violent means toward such petty issues are on the furthest edge of the fringe of mainstream Islam. Even radical Iranian clerics were reported by BBC to condemn the violence. An article here states clearly the positions of Imams from the two holiest mosques of a boycott, and not a hint of any violence.

As a Muslim myself, I also a little bit surprised that this issue had been blown out of proportions. I think there was already a big momentum building up to this from misrepresentation of Islam in major mass media about the war on terrorism. So somehow or another, certain groups were waiting for an issue to surface for them to voice out their dissatisfaction. Too bad you innocent Norwegians also suffer the consequences. Other than the anger, there was also more peaceful means of showing dissatisfaction through boycotts of Danish products in the Middle East which I haven't seen being discussed in this thread. What do you think about this then? Is it cruel to the Danish companies?

I haven't managed to go through all the posts in this thread, but might just want to mention the worthiness of free speech. I have a feeling that Western culture and governments have an illogical and unrealistic attraction to the concept of ‘free speech’. Even under Western law it is an established fact that free speech is not without limits; the example often given is that the concept of free speech does not give anyone the right to yell “fire’ in a crowded theater. But still, in many cases it seems that a relatively small issue in allowing ‘free speech’ is given precedence over the large amount of harm the effects of that speech might do to society. That some individual’s claimed right to free speech can be allowed when that speech can cause great harm or discomfort to human society, or even to a notable segment of society, seems so clearly to be an incorrect assessment of priorities that it must be considered bizarre. There seems to be a failure to recognize the difference between freedom and license. Freedom is the right to do anything that is within acceptable limits; license is the use of power to act outside of the acceptable limits.

Bill, what you said is an important perspective to this issue. And there is no denying that maximum profit is THE factor that drives a capitalist economy. Does this mean that social engineering toward an egalitarian society is unnecessary? And that there should not be any bother to take up responsibility in promoting the cause of those at a disadvantage? I also want to note that I have a different perspective because in my country - Malaysia - it is the majority who are somehow the underprivileged though they are the ones in power by way of the constitution. This is due to the effects of British colonization and Chinese and Indian workers imported under British rule with a Divide and Rule policy. Despite 30 years of positive discrimination, the native Malays (who make up 60% of the population) still only possess about 18% of the nation's wealth. Corruption and political propaganda is often blamed for this failure.

C1ay, I don't think it is a punishment for the majority. It is still based on merit, but because one group has an advantage in terms of financial support, people in this group should do better in, say, academic exams. therefore, a person who comes from a poor family has more merit than a person who is well-off but has the same level of achievement on paper. this is why I say that affirmative action is still merit-based. The hostility that people have shown here toward affirmative action makes me feel I am missing something. And I think perhaps affirmative action in Malaysia is viewed and applied in a different context than that in America.

I agree with you here. hmm... I don't think there is actually any difference between meritocracy and affirmitive action in the sense that both are essentially trying to select those most deserving of reward/opportunity. However, meritocracy is usually stereotyped as a selection based on paper, while affirmitive action goes further and factors in the socio-economic background as part of the criteria in judging a person's "merit". You raised a good point in that affirmative action will result in a waste of talent. Regarding your comment on welfare state, I think it depends on the kind of welfare that is being employed.

I think you missed a fundamental point to the issue, which is to uplift the socio-economic status of certain groups who have historically been at a disadvantage. A merit-based system would continually oppress those who are at a disadvantage. In terms of education, lets say two students have shown identical academic performance, but one is the son of Bill Gates, while the other is a daughter of housemaid, who do think deserves to be given a scholarship? Of course, I'd say that a race-based affirmitive action might not be fair to a working-class majority group, but a socio-economic-based policy is more complicated to enforce.

From wiki: Affirmative action (U.S. English), or positive discrimination (British English), is a policy or a program promoting the representation in various systems of people of a group who have traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a more egalitarian society. I'm not sure to what extent has affirmitive action been implemented in the US to leverage the socio-economic parity. If true, by what means - race, gender, or socio-economic status? What would be the ideal solution in creating an opportunity-based egalitarian society? Anyone care to edify this issue?

I don't understand why you Westerners want to destroy China and any other emerging powers for the sole reason of maintaining a unipolar world. Why is eternal conflict opted in place of a solution of peace and love. Such archaic motives.

It is depressing to see that the zeitgeist of today is still one of force and agression. Quote from The Unified Theory of Existence: That the human race should turn from the path of force and aggression to the path of peace and love is the natural course of development. It will happen, in fact it must happen, unless the human race comes to an end before that change has a chance to take place. Anyways, an interesting book on modern future conflicts is that of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilization.

As I mentioned, the Raelian Movement is a secular pluralist concept which denies God and the truths of ancient text.

From the link you gave: ( the Elohim referred to from the website is supposed to be our creators)I totally disagree with this Raelian Movement. How can they claim that those prophets were their messengers when the authentic text of the prophet is totally contradictory to the tenets of the Raelian Movement. I somehow cannot conceive of secular pluralist ideas.

ARe you referring to Muslims? Then why just Arabs? There are Arabic Christians and atheists, and there are non-arab Muslims (more muslims are non-arabs). THere is absolutely no evidence to say that Muslims worship Muhammad. Do you know what the shahadatan is? It is to witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is God's MESSENGER. If a person worships Muhammad, that person cannot be a Muslim. If he was a Muslim when he worshipped Muhammad, then that person would be an apostate.About the concept of God in Islam, the four verses of surah Al-Ikhlas (Chapter 112, verse 1- 4) explain very lucidly: 1. Say: He is Allah, the One and Only 2. Allah, the Eternal, Absolute 3. He begets not, nor is He begotten 4. And none is like Him

it is not just physical complexity that evolved. The array of abilities that can be done by an organism also evolved. For example, amoebas can't do much in comparison to fishes. And monkeys can't do as much as humans. The chasm between them is huge. Monkeys don't seem to have symbolic language to think with, other than external influences upon it.Therefore, if I take your postulate, we also have a purpose to further the evolution of ability/will. Most especially is human intellect and consciousness.