well of course they aren't to blame, they don't have agency... everything happens due to the will of their god... they don't have anything called free will. or something...

maybe it's just their gout acting up.

Remember the Iraqi Information Minister? The chap who kept insisting there were no American infidels in Baghdad, even when the whole world could see American tanks rolling down the street right behind him and Iraqi soldiers running away in their underwear? He wasn't blind, and he wasn't just mindlessly following Saddam's orders. For him to admit to the whole world that Iraqi soldiers, Muslim soldiers, were running away from an infidel army would be so shameful, so dishonorable, that he couldn't bring himself to say it.

Likewise, the Muslims in that audience all know damn well that Muslims are slaughtering Muslims by the thousands in Syria & Pakistan & elsewhere. But they can't say it, and they won't let anyone else say it, because that would bring shame and dishonor upon Islam, which is the worst of all sins.

Hummmph. Islam brings shame and dishonor upon ITSELF, time and time again, every damn day. Those who can't see that are deliberately turning a blind eye to it. Amazing, ain't it?

This is an excellent point.

If you're too eager to identify Islamic fundamentalism as the strongest identity for such a big chunk of humanity, you'll be granting the extremists much more authority than they could ever have assembled on their own.

There's no reason to assume that the purest expression of black life is in violent rap music.

There's no reason to assume the purest expression of white life is by polka music.

There's no reason to assume the purest expression of Arab (or Indonesian or Nigerian) life is through Islam…

…Unless we convince them that it is.

Let's pick our enemies thoughtfully... There's need to rush. There will always be new things to be afraid of.

thanks for linking that monster point Crid. But it's really hard to tell who the extremis are, sometimes. Like the Honor killing of a 20 year old in Phx. ... this guy seems extreme to US but what he did is well accepted back home. And then the guy only got 34 years instead of life in prison, for what reason I can't imagine.

The guy escaped from hussein, to make a new life here... but doesn't accept where he is going, instead wishing to bring where he's been. Hitch even touched on that unfortunate question about bringing sharia law to the UK.

So this guy paid the price for following his religion, but that doesn't speak to keeping his child safe.

Guy is not a jihadi, just a truckdriver in Phoenix. Essentially we can't swing from one side to the other, either making an assumption that there are a billion budding terroristas, nor that everyone that comes to the new world will suddenly start following all our laws, as if it is now the right thing to do.

Dunno that the compromise position is too strong, either, but it seems better than then either end position.

Taking someone's life is WRONG, no matter where you are. In the USA, it's against the law to kill anyone, anywhere, anytime; unless that person has been sentenced to death, under the law. The law of the land trumps (or should, anyway) any religious "law". There are a LOT of religions out there, practiced all over the world. In this part of the world, killing anyone, for any reason, is ILLEGAL, and it doesn't MATTER what religion you practice. Or it shouldn't. Hitch is right about the UK shouldn't be allowing Muslims their own courts. The law of the land prevails, not the law of any one particular religion, because therein lies the slippery slope. If you allow it for one religion, you must allow it for all. Too bad there's only the one (pseudo)religion that sanctions honor (and other) killings.

Flynne, mosques are a favorite target of the Taliban:

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/12/suicide_bomber_kills_62.php

On December 6 of last year, a suicide bomber blew up 54 praying Muslims in one shot at a mosque in Kabul. And as you can read, that was only one of several deadly mosque bombings carried out in Afghanistan at that time. There was barely a peep of protest from Afghans or any other Muslims at all this slaughter.

By contrast, when "The Innocence of Muslims" hit the fan, Afghanistan & Pakistan erupted in orgies of rioting, looting, and murdering. All over a hopelessly cheezy YouTube video that hardly any of the rioters even saw for themselves in the first place. You'd think that blowing up mosques full of praying Muslims would be a worse sin against Islam than a video that portrays Mohammed as an ignorant, illiterate pervert (which he was). But the mosque bombings are just Muslims killing some other Muslims, while an insulting film about Mohammed is an insult to the honor of all Muslims, so it gets a much bigger reaction.

Swiss, a lot of honor killers in the West fit that profile - seemingly decent 21st century guys on the outside, clinging to the tribal 7th century notion that any girl who brings shame on her family must be killed on the inside.

Crid, no Muslims anywhere are waiting for infidels to identify what their identities should be. Islam and honor are vital elements in the identity of a lot of Muslims on this planet, whether we like it or not. Thinking about how this reflects in their behavior is worthwhile.

> no Muslims anywhere are waiting for infidels
> to identify what their identities should be

I don't think the proportion of violent young black males in the urban America represents anything about their nature.

Do you?

No. What I think is that the proportion of violent young black males won't go down if their fatherless thug culture is not addressed. That culture is not innate to people with black skin. It didn't really develop until the welfare state started to take the place of fathers in poor black neighborhoods. But it's real, and it needs to be dealt with. Likewise, Muslim honor culture needs to be addressed.

Right... Culture is how people identify what's expected of them.

thanks for linking that monster point Crid. But it's really hard to tell who the extremis are, sometimes. Like the Honor killing of a 20 year old in Phx. ... this guy seems extreme to US but what he did is well accepted back home. And then the guy only got 34 years instead of life in prison, for what reason I can't imagine.

Posted by: SwissArmyD at October 15, 2012 12:49 PM
_____________________________

I found the case - the woman was Noor Almaleki, from Iraq, and the murderer was Faleh Almaleki.

There's a six-page feature about it by Abigail Pesta in a July issue of "Marie Claire."

What's also chilling was what I found at the Huffington Post when I Googled on Faleh's name (this is in the comments field):

longtimgone:
On May 8, 1970 (three days after the massacre at Kent State). In a "hippie commune" in Detroit's inner city, Arville Garland burst in at 2:30 am, a gun in each hand and killed his daughter, Sandy Garland, her partner, Scott Kabran, and friends, Greg Walls and Tony Brown. From the account in the Detroit Free Press at the time: "Many people say that Sandy and Scott and Greg and Tony deserved to be punished for the way they lived, for their long hair and their unconventional life-styles, for their hard rock music, for their dope. People say they might even have done what Garland did, if they had walked in on their daughter naked in bed, asleep with a hippie, a black boy in another bed in the same room." When the pace of change in society accelerates, confused parents can go over the edge, "clinging to guns and religion," not the proper way to hold either. I remember this case well, and I also recall that, in the climate of 1970, MANY parents were sympathetic with this particular father. Said Garland, of his daughter: "Children have no freedom. They are our property just like a book. She's my property and I can do whatever I want with her." Here is a link to an article in Time; notice how carefully the press contextualized the father in a sympathetic light, almost rationalizing his murders.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877135,00.html

(end of comment)

Trouble is, you have to subscribe to TIME.

Also, as it happens, just weeks after the 1970 murders, the Peter Boyle movie "Joe" was released - and it had an incredibly similar plot; the judge for the Garland case would not have any jurors who saw the movie. (Boyle refused to work in violent movies after that.)

From rationalwiki:

"While awaiting trial, Garland received over 1,000 letters from frustrated parents who congratulated him for taking such a -- um -- TOUGH stand with his daughter." (Reportedly, in the first few weeks at least, NO ONE wrote to him to condemn his actions.)

And get this - Garland got out of jail in 1980! He died in 2004.

The jury gave Garland a substantial sentence of 10 to 40 years on each of 3 counts of 2nd degree murder plus 10 to 15 years on 1 count of manslaughter. Exactly how that turned into 10 years served I don't know.

To get an idea of the scope of the honor killing problem in the Muslim world, read this article from the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/iraq-honor-killings-women

In 2008, 81 women & girls in the city of Basra were killed for bringing shame upon their families (that is, for doing things like talking in public to a man who was not a relative). Only 5 people were convicted of anything. The actual body count was probably much higher, since many killings were recorded as sectarian murders, not honor killings. This was in a city with a population of less than 2 million.