Posted on 02/25/2006 3:00:55 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
I hate to burst your bubble, but that's not possible.
When there have been abuses of the Christian faith, it was because people were corrupting the faith to achieve selfish goals.
If you read the Koran, you'll discover the murderous terrorist agenda is consistent with, and supported by Islam.
When was last time you heard of "moderate" Muslims demonstrate or at least speak out against terrorist tactics? Have you ever wondered why they don't?
Let's also remember that this is a country that sees the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and they believe Israel has no right to exist.
The UAE has all of the trappings of a 21st century nation, but obviously it is not the same as the US or Western Europe.
You got that right.
Not necessarily. It had to do more with different interpretations of the Bible and who had the authority to do so than selfish goals. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are not monoliths. There are distinct divisions between fundamentalism/orthodoxy and the more secular.
If you read the Koran, you'll discover the murderous terrorist agenda is consistent with, and supported by Islam.
I read the Koran a long time ago as part of a comparative religions course. The Koran, like the Old Testament, has some strong language and violent prescriptions concerning what to do with non-believers or sinners. Islam is not a monolith either. There are differences between Sh'ia and Sunnis and fundamentalists and the more secular.
When was last time you heard of "moderate" Muslims demonstrate or at least speak out against terrorist tactics? Have you ever wondered why they don't?
There have been plenty examples of Muslim groups and governments decrying the violence and terrorist tactics. After all, they have been most of the victims of such violence.
Let's also remember that this is a country that sees the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and they believe Israel has no right to exist.
Past tense. The UAE stopped recognition of the Taliban immediately after 9/11. The UAE does not recognize Israel, but it is not the only Muslim country that does not. Are you implying that we should cease all diplomatic relations and other dealings with governments that do not recognize Israel? Why is that relevant to us?
You're trying to pass off old info as current.
Of course you don't give a damn about General Franks opinion, it's only based on his real knowledge, not your political agenda.
Lou Dobbs: "The UAE stonewalled U.S. efforts to track al Qaeda bank accounts after 9/11. In addition, the Emirates does not recognize Israel as a sovereign state. And the UAE was a transfer point for shipments of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya."
Heres a link to the transcript where he said the above:
"So many have no clue how they are making it harder for good guys to accomplish the mission. They are so frightened, and so full of hatred, that they don't care about the thousands of Americans and British and others who are embedded with Arab organizations in Muslim countries and dependent upon those people for their continued survival and the successful prosecution of the war."
We're at a really, really dangerous point here. When Al Quieda lunatics succeed in equating in the general American mind that Radical Islamist and Arab are indistinguishably one and the same thing, they suceed in creating the suspicion and the hatred we see in this saga. I fear we are doing Osama's recruitment for him. Which is especially dangerous at a time when we have just liberated 60 million Arabs who suddenly for the first time in their lives have the freedom to decide where their political sympathies lie.....
I've been reading all the comments and I think you are fighting the good fight. I was in Qatar at As Saliyah for 7 months from Sept 2003-April 2004 (between trips to Iraq) and one of the things I took away from my experience is that if we are going to accomplish our goal of transforming the middle east (thereby greatly reducing the threat of terrorism) we have to encourage people in the region to accept at least some of our values. From my time in Qatar I got the impression that tolerance and Islam were not totally incompatible and that moderate leaders like the Emir could lead their people away from extremism if we provided some encouragement. Qataris were more interested in trade than jihad and wanted an alliance with us to protect them from the Saudis, Iranians and other radicals in the region. In any conflict with Iran the UAE will be of critical importance. I think the President is playing a deeper strategic game than many here are giving him credit for.
A link to a Lou Dobbs screed on CNN...quoting sources that are only repeated the same denbunked BS. No thanks, I don't rely on CNN for facts.
Thank you. I tell my clients to do business with Arabs only on a 100% cash upfront basis. Otherwise, its all practice.
Contracts mean shiite to thes people.
So you can refute it but choose to keep whining about it. Why am I not surprised? Obviously you have an agenda here, and it has nothing to do with the security of the USA.
The hypocrisy of Malkin, who whines about being called a "gook" in her email, and her anti-Arab remarks is astounding.
She and Coulter are the bomb-throwers of the extremist right.
Yeah, convert or kill.
There have been plenty examples of Muslim groups and governments decrying the violence and terrorist tactics.
If there are, they're keeping it a great secret. Give me some examples.
How about the Muslim demonstration in Washington D.C. that drew about 200 demonstrators? WOW! That's really making a bolt nationwide statement!
Are you implying that we should cease all diplomatic relations and other dealings with governments that do not recognize Israel?
No. I'm not implying anything of the sort. But, any government that has the position of wanting Israel eliminated has too much in common with the terrorists. And, we should regard them differently as we regard Norway or Spain and Slovakia.
PSA Corp, Cosco Pacific and Danish shipping giant AP Moller will jointly develop a 6-berth port project in China's Dalian city.The project has an estimated cost of US$600 million, or S$1 billion.
Singapore port operator PSA will take a 25 percent stake in the project, while its Chinese counterpart Cosco Pacific and AP Moller will hold 20 percent each. State-owned Dalian Port Group will have the remaining 35 percent.
The project will more than double the annual container handling capacity of Dalian port to almost 5 million standard container units. -
thanks for the excellent post.
the more i learn about dubai, the less i like having them operate in the US: let's see: they support hamas, they don't like Jews, they supported the taliban, they supported al qaeda during the period when it attacked the Cole and killed American navy personnel, they shipped or tried to ship weapons to Iran, Saddam, and Lybia, and one of their sheiks helped fund the 9-11 attacks! (i hope i got all that right.)
yeah, let's turn ALL the terminals in ALL of the ports over to these guys!
an effective counter-argument!
citing General Franks, who is a hero, over and over, will not win this debate.
many great heroes have been misled by evil characters. if the emir of dubai is such a good guy, why did he support al qaeda prior to 9-11, when it was blowing up American service men? i doubt if his true personality has changed in such a short time.
why does the emir refuse to recognize israel, but allow hamas to operate thru dubai?
it is fine to have evil characters like this as allies during a war, but that doesn't mean we should let them manage any terminals in US ports.
you can keep mentioning Franks over and over, but it won't change this stuff. (afterall, the fact that the waffen ss was eulogized in a speech made by ronald reagan doesn't make the ss good guys.)
the more the American people learn about the emir of dubai, the less they will like this deal. how many Jewish voters are going to vote for repubs who support this policy, when the emir wants to eliminate israel?
if dubai is in the business of trans-shipping weapons to places like lybia, north korea, and iran, why would we want them operating terminals in the US?
both national security concerns and politics argue against this deal.
going on about spamming and General Franks is no answer to legitimate security concerns.
i have been reading criticisms of malkin on these threads. could you please post the anti-arab stuff that you are talking about.
the column that i just read by malkin seemed very reasonable to me, as did coulter's recent column.
please post the comments that you consider "scurrilous" so that we can judge them fairly.
in my book, anybody that supports a group like hamas is a sleazebag. is that "scurrilous"?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.