Posted on 08/27/2006 8:48:04 AM PDT by TaxachusettsMan
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Two FOX News journalists were released by their kidnappers Sunday, nearly two weeks after they were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Steve Centanni, 60, and Olaf Wiig, 36, left Gaza and have since crossed into Israel after their release. The men left Gaza through the Erez border crossing.
The freeing of Centanni, a correspondent, and Wiig, a cameraman, ends the longest-running drama involving foreign hostages in Gaza.
The two journalists were dropped off at Gaza City's Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials and appeared to be in good health. A tearful Centanni embraced a Palestinian journalist briefly as he entered, then rushed upstairs as Wiig followed.
Centanni, in a phone interview shortly after his release, said "I'm fine. I'm just so happy to be free."
He recounted how he and Wiig were pulled out of their car on August 14 and taken at gunpoint into another car. The kidnappers blindfolded them and handcuffed their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. They were then transferred to another car and driven to a building that they later learned was a garage.
"We were pushed down onto the dirt-covered concrete floor and we were forced to lie face down with our handcuffs on," Centanni said.
"Olaf was in the same room with me. Our shoulders were wrenched back, very painful."
Both of the men were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, Centanni said.
"We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni told FOX News. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Who is to say? Cloning was once only thought of as SiFi? Why not ice preservation unto the next century? It depends on what your imagination will allow.
In part it's the essential flip side of maintaining "moral clarity" in identifying, marginalizing and opposing evil. This entails that when we identify evil we identify it with clarity and with precision. IOW that we identify precisely what is evil, and not sweep up incidentals in our denotation. In can only weaken our claims against evil, and undermine our moral clarity, to confuse that which is essential concerning evil with that which is incidental. AND ALSO, I might add, to confuse that which is abstract with that which is concrete.
For instance Communism as a totalitarian system, and the Soviet Empire which embodied it, was evil. Nor did the Soviet Union, btw, "inherent" evil in some abstract form from the dry theory of the communism that it applied (or claimed to). It was evil because of what it did, and because of what it aimed to do. OTOH, it was not "the Ruskies" who were evil, even if and when evil might be relatively prominent among "Ruskies".
Conservative talk show host Dennis Praeger, a paragon of moral clarity, has commented, when asked about the implications of the evil currently prominent within Islam, that (as best I can paraphrase from memory) he judges an individual's religion just as he judges an individual's character: by individual actions. Therefore a Muslim who acts justly is good, and one who commits evil acts is evil, and the same standard applies to anyone of any religion or ideology.
This is my perspective as well. Maybe it's due to my being somewhat detached (as a nonreligious "philosophical theist") from any particular set of religious dogmas, but I think religion -- any religion -- is far more malleable -- more prone to diverse and various interpretation, and often to quite rapid evolution -- than do most religious adherents. (I'm often amazed that many religionists can look at their own tradition and see, overwhelmingly, a seamless continuity of doctrine; whereas I see in the same tradition awesome and audacious shifts, innovations and evolutions. The thing is these always get rationalized after the fact as having been part of doctrine and practice "all along".)
The embrace of suicide bombing by Sunni Muslims, and the elaboration of a detailed doctrinal rationale to justify it, is an example (even if an invidious one) of extremely rapid religious evolution. Only a single generation ago the idea of such planned and purposeful suicide (as opposed to mere carelessness of death in battle, which Sunnis did value) was a uniquely Shia doctrine. For centuries Sunnis viewed suicide martyrdom as a perverse doctrine, and one clearly countermanded by their religious texts. And yet, without a word of the Koran or the Hadiths being changed, and within the space of only two or three decades, millions of Sunnis came to approvingly accept suicide martyrdom .
(I haven't done a study of this or anything like that, but I'm certain this acceptance of suicide martyrdom among Sunnis began with the Palestinians, probably due to their sick joy in watching videos of Shia extremists in Southern Lebanon vaporize Jews during the 80's. I'm equally certain it spread to other Islamists, particularly Arab Muslims, with their obsequious and reflexive justification of every Palestinian atrocity.)
BTW, I'll hope you'll notice from my message so far, IG, that refusing to misidentify evil, and refusing to generalize it to a identity group (e.g. Muslims in general, versus violent Islamists) does NOT preclude identifying evil. Nor does it even preclude criticizing Islam for propensities, as frequently practiced, toward generating violence.
But of course the most effectual criticism of Islam will come from within. Yet this is precisely what you're undercutting when you claim that all internal critics (i.e. of Islamism and related tendencies) are phonies.
And to those who claim that all (observant) Muslims must be evil because their religious texts teach evil (and going back to Praeger's distinction) I'd ask the following.
Consider individual "A" and individual "B".
"A" follows a religion who's holy book (for whatever historical reason) includes a passage demanding: "Thou shalt rape thrice daily." Yet, for whatever reason, maybe because he has rationalized and reinterpreted that passage in some manner, "A" has never committed rape, and has no intention of ever doing so.
"B" follows a religion who's scriptures specifically list rape as a sin. Yet, again for whatever reason, "B" happens to be an inveterate rapist.
Now who is just (or "moderate") and who is evil (or "extremist")?
---Apologies for a somewhat rambling message. Could have used more editing but don't have the time just now.
You may be right; it may not be a classic cult. What its radicalized adherents have manifested it as is much worse. When its adherents have as a religious tenet: Death to America/Jews/Israel/Christians/the West, etc, it becomes a malignancy that cannot, and must not be tolerated, nor allowed to grow. It becomes manifest self defense to attack and destroy its radicalized element. Its radicalized element must be excised with prejudice and absolutely eliminated.
No exceptions.
This view is not shared by all. Once again, I bring up one of the founders of modern radical Islam - Sayyid Qutb. I have never read any of his documents; I have read a historian's account of his documents. Mr. Qutb supported jihad in order to preserve Islam as a choice. He didn't care if people didn't convert; he just wanted them to be aware of the existence of the message.
Do you feel that all radical elements of religion must be excised with prejudice and absolutely terminated? What about Kahane?
I heard an eye witness account of Muslims celebrating outdoors in a southwest suburb of Chicago on 9-11-2001.
There were reports of attacks on mosques in that town on the news that night. But, not a word about why people in that community were driven to such behavior.
Kahane is dead, BTW.
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