My comments overnight -- the posting mechanism at BU seems to be locking it out -- are:
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Moderators:
I must further comment in response to an unfortunate slander.
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NS:
1] You have failed to apologise for slander. Thus, you have shown yourself to be a willful indulger in verbal violence. Onlookers, kindly observe.
2] Sources vs substance
NS -- including through his own slanders against me [false accusations of racism, advocacy of violence etc] -- has resorted to a common tactic when one has not the substance -- attack the source.
In fact the onward cites and links I gave are replete with detailed onward links and themselves indicate the breadth of the understanding that CAIR is a subversive and Jihadistic group: FBI reports, Court testimony and record (the documents in discovery at the Holy Land Foundation trial -- this link is to Wiki which puts the conviction on retrial in a short paragraph, cf Dallas Morning news here, and the arabic document and translation [pp15 ff] and discussion here, plus this more detailed documentation compilation and notes here by IPT, also this summary on a key point -- are a treasure trove on what is going on all by themselves . . . ), testimony by a wide array of Congresspeople of the US who are not otherwise noted to be in general agreement. (And, BTW, sometimes, it is those who are specifically motivated who are the best sources on an issue. the issue is not who, but the balance on the facts and related reasoning. Notice how in the cited AP report and commentary by JW, the "standard" rebuttal tactic is to attach the man not deal with the facts . . . )
AND, the author of the book-length expose/report in question -- which recall rests on 12,000 pp of largely internal and undeniable CAIR documents, and 300 hrs of videotape [which have actually not been objected to, CAIR has instead attacked the person] -- is authored by a person whose personal life and career highlights give lie to he accusation that it is motivated by racial bigotry etc.
So, onlookers, I leave you to decide for yourselves whose report you will believe on the merits, why.
3] CAIR 5k vs 50 k membership
Of course CAIR's membership levels and trends show that it is thankfully not dominant in the US Muslim population.
However, it has long been a major media and official voice, even used by the US Government in training etc; on the previous understanding that it is a spokesman for the Muslim people of the USA, and that it is moderate.
In short, a major issue with CAIR is that given its foundational connnexions to HAMAS and so the Muslim Brotherhood and the pattern of exposed behaviour linked to terrorism support by word and funding, is that it serves as a agent of subversive influence. As we should recall from the Cold War era, agents of influence do not have to have great numbers, just the access to media, academy and official circles to exert subversive force. And the intent to do that is documented in the AP article linked already:
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>>. . . The 1991 bylaws of a group called the Palestine Committee say it was created to be the highest authority on "work for the Palestinian cause on the American front." The committee was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, later deported to Jordan and labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government.
The committee oversaw a number of former and current Muslim organizations in the United States.
One was Holy Land [Foundation], which was shut down in December 2001 and is accused of being a fundraising front for Hamas. Five of its former leaders are on trial in Dallas, charged with sending more than $12 million in illegal aid to Hamas. [On the retrial, they were convicted on all 108 counts in Nov 2008.]
Another was the Islamic Association for Palestine, which closed in 2004 after a federal judge found it and then-defunct Holy Land liable in the killing of an American teenager in Israel by Hamas gunmen.
And a third was the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which has emerged as a leading advocacy group for American Muslims.
For the first time, evidence in the case put CAIR's founder, Nihad Awad, at a Philadelphia meeting of alleged Hamas supporters that was secretly watched and recorded by the FBI.
The groups had overlapping rosters of leaders. Documents introduced by prosecutors in the Holy Land trial list several of the charity's leaders as officials in the Islamic Association for Palestine....
"It's clear these groups grew out of an effort to carry out a specific strategy in the United States," Farah said. "It's in their own words, it's a political infiltration that worked for 40 years." . . . .
One of the documents is a memo about the goals for the U.S. organization of the U.S. faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose members included some of the Holy Land leaders now on trial.
The memo's writer, Mohamed Akram, wrote that members of the Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within." >>
( In supplement, I cite from the strategy document in Arabic and translation:
>> The Ikhwan [the Muslim Brotherhood's name for itself] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. …
They are then to work to employ, direct, and unify Muslims’ efforts and powers for this process. In order to do that, we must possess a mastery of the art of “coalitions,” the art of “absorption,” and the principles of “cooperation.” >>)
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What is now happening, is that formerly hidden connexions to terrorism and lines of consciously subversive influence are now coming out, though trials, through exposure of financial backing and key personnel, and through now an undercover investigation.
4] CAIR's boycott threats
A boycott threat depends on the perception of widespread support.
So, the expose of lack of such widespread support is an important step in breaking the undue influence of CAIR.
Your "shoot in the foot" analogy breaks down.
5] NS, On appeasement
I have pointed out -- revisionist historians notwithstanding -- that the surviving German generals themselves are the source on what would have happened had France and the UK stood up to Hitler in the early stages of the power moves of the 1930's. Let us not forget: MUSSOLINI stopped the first attempt to intimidate and subvert Austria, by sending was it eight divisions to the Brenner pass in 1934.
When Hiter moved against the Rhinelands, he disposed of 4 available battalions as I recall. In so moving he broke the treaty of Versailles openly -- and invited a military response. (So much for the nasty attempt to imply that a strong response in defence of a peaceful order is to be equated as a "war crime" substantially comparable with the preparatory moves for a continent-wide and global power grab. ONLOOKERS, NOTICE HOW HITLER IS BEING "REHABILITATED" BY THOSE WHO OBJECT TO MY CITATION OF RELEVANT HISTORY, THROUGH THE RHETORIC OF IMMORAL EQUIVALENCE. Take warning . . . )
The French had more than enough troops (and tanks too . .. ) to back up the treaty's terms, but with the half-heartedness of the British -- who I primarily blame on this one -- they were unwilling to stand up.
Once Hitler re-occupied this forward position, he fortified the line and discombobulated the western front. By 1936 Belgium peeled off the Western alliance and set its forlorn hopes on neutrality -- which played a significant part in events in 1940.
Once Britain and France confronted a German defence line, they thought back to the Somme and Verdun and assaults on the Hindenberg line in 1917 that broke French morale and triggered mutiny, and were intimidated into passivity.
Hitler spent a year or two building up his forces to as more credible level, then struck against Austria and Czechoslovakia in rapid succession.
Thus he outflanked Czechoslovakia and took away its key defence line. In turn, taking Czechoslovakia outflanked Poland. And then -- after being strategically dislocated -- at last the British found the gumption to stand up, when it was all but too late. And it WAS too late for the Austrians, the Czechs, the Poles, the Belgians, the Dutch and even the French.
As for the British, it was a near-run thing.
The rest is history as they say.
So, I simply do not buy the revisionism, on the facts of the actual correlation of forces c 1934 - 36, what happened when Mussolini stood up to Hitler, and what we now know from the German generals; actually have known ever since the Liddell-Hart interviews.
As to the notion that the author of Mein Kampf could ever have been appeased, I will simply cite from that book, in Ch X of its first part:
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>>Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents . . . Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature for a higher breeding of all life . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness . . . .
The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice . . . . >>
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Appeasement presupposes a reasonable person willing to compromise.
Or, that by buying time one can make a better stand later. The evidence runs in the opposite direction, on both counts.
6] MME on Ac 21 - 23
MME has neatly snipped out the telling CONTEXT for Ac 21 - 23, which I highlighted.
I cited the section of the Ac -- and ALL Scripture is profitable for instruction! -- in the specific context that it was an outworking on the ground of the teachings in Rom 13:1 - 10 given just a few months previously, with the background of events in Nehemiah, Daniel and even the Pentateuch [Exodus]. In short, we see here scripture-twisting in the face of being given specific context and discussion. (Since people will usually not follow details of a complex matter step by step, this sort of strawman tactic works surprisingly often.)
The doctrine of interposition is well established and the context of Romans recognises the Roman state as a legitimate civil authority accountable to God to defend Justice. That Nero spectacularly failed in this duty once he discarded Seneca and Burris, does not change this; save that it gives further point to the issue of accountability under God.
Indeed, the famous coin incident in the gospels gives further force to this.
There is that which is of Caesar, and that which is of God. Given the reality that God is creator and that he has created the nations [cf Ac 17], Who has given Caesar that which is in his sphere of responsibility? to whom, then will Caesar account for his stewardship of justice and the power of the purse, the law and the sword? (The answers are self-evident.)
7] On force vs violence again
Force is a reality in a world in which there are wolves that have to be stopped; on pain of destroying the civil peace that protects us all.
So, whether force of words -- and "life and death lie in the power of the tongue" -- or force of the purse or force of the law and the court, or the force that backs that up, the sword, we have to address the issue of when force is just and when it is unjust.
This is a moral question, inescapably. And, it is a proper distinction to designate unjust use of force -- from tongue [e.g. destructive slander] to the sword -- as VIOLENCE.
So, words are far more dangerous and accountable than some are inclined to think, and to abuse. Of course, the naked sword is obviously a force of lethal potential, but so is the destructive tongue.
I repeat, every resort to force has to be justified, on moral grounds. And, in the context of the sword, the well known results of the breakdown of the civil peace and the domination of the sheep by the wolf make the justification plain.
I have already spoken tot he issue of the shepherd gone bad, and his correction or removal by the interposition of other civil authorities and the people. I have noted that the general election is a means to that end.
8] Strikes against Iran . . .
Of course such have not happened to date.
And, the onward tactic is a dilemma: (i) address a controversial issue on an unpopular side and alienate many emotionally, or (ii) be made to look like you are dodging issues -- never mind the actual track record above of ever increasingly tangential and polarising rhetoric using misleading rhetoric, to distract attention from and dismiss the main issue from the original post: we have an islamist fifth column at work in our civilisation.
I will go though the middle, as there is a thrd option -- the dilemma is a false one, though any response will be used doubtless to try to furter polarise the discussion. The real issue is: what is a responsible course of action in the face of a plainly growing threat.
For, only a few months back, we saw a country that had its "leaders" steal an election and abuse the power of the sword to block the people from protesting. [Notice the studied silence on such. A key step here would be to support the people of Iran and their legitimate representatives in their liberation struggle against their Islamist tyrants.]
I would think, beyond this, that a credible alternative to take out the Iranian nuke weapons programme before cities begin to go up in smoke as per declarations by Mr Ahmadinejad and co, would be a base for a serious diplomatically worked out interdiction and/or dismantling of such developments.
(Of course the gradual subversion of any such alternative -- as say the Iraq multi-billion dollar bribery of international officials scandal highlighted -- is another issue that has to be faced; and constrains the credible list of realistic options. Oil money can corrupt international institutions, as we have seen in recent years. So, the issue is neither simple nor easy to address.)
If such diplomacy backed by resolution fails, we have the very plain lesson of the 1930's in front of us. We must not forget it, lest we repeat its worst chapters, with nukes in play in the hands of an unhinged dictator this time.
That lesson is that it only takes a few years to move from a minor cloud on the horizon to a world threatening reality. But, along that path, would- be aggressors will have broken key treaties designed to protect the international peace.
So, it is those who by their arguments imply that cities have to go up in nuclear smoke and fire before serious responses can be taken [by those crippled by such blows?], who have a case to prove.
That case, I would like to hear.
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Onlookers, let us hope that we and our children will not face the consequences of failing to act with good sense and determination in good time even as the nuclear storm clouds gather before our eyes. And, let us hope that we will recognise the rhetorical stratagems of agents of influence and others of like ilk, that are plainly designed to confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere, so that we will not see our need to act with determination before it is too late.
Good day
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I trust this will be enough to help us see what is needed, if we are to move to a more responsible public discussion. END
