Nadeem F. Paracha spews more hatred for Islam

[picoico]

@Reason

You can’t complain about what the US did in the past to Iran and then complain about the US responding to what Iran did to it. Iran knew the consequences of its action. It actually got lucky. Carter was reluctant to use force. If Iran did that under, say, Nixon they would have received the wrath of daily air strikes.

Why can’t I? Needless to say, if you wish to pain America as the victimized innocent, as you wish…one can hardly take such a view serioulsy though…

Anyone? It is ironic to hear a Pakistani say this. They invaded and conquered Pakistan for one, as well as most of the Middle East and parts of Greece and Central Asia.

LOL…you didn’t get my point…when the CIA overthrew the elected Iranian government, what was Iran’s fault? It’s quite clear that America does not need a reason to mess with Iran, as you so insist they had in '79…

Thank you for the misplaced history lesson though. It wasn’t needed.

The alternative punishment under shariah often is punishment of the victim for “adultery”…

Under Shariah? No. Pakistani Hudood laws.

Islamists, like communists, like to claim “true” Islamism has never been implemented yet they never spell out what “true” Islamism or Marxism is. Why is this? Is it because what has been tried time and again is basically in accordance with Islamism?

Some do. I don’t. There have been various attempts, and each had it’s flaws…I don’t see that as a reason to throw out the Shariah in general as I do not see it as a single codified body of law that either works or doesn’t. Again, I’m neither an ideologist nor a utopian, so you’ll kindly spare me these kinds of arguments.

Apartheid was not a British or Dutch idea but the form of government and other laws were influenced by those two countries.

That’s nice. White south africans were affluent, had built a first-world society, and at the same time rejected much of what the liberal west held sacred. So much for the correlation…

India is a functioning democracy. How many Muslim countries can make the same claim?

One should care less if it’s a democracy or not, that it is functioning and effective even in the face of corruption is laudable. It’s much more business friendly, and I suppose that’s the most important thing that contributes to it’s strength.

Yeah, and look up the list of per capita GDP by country and see Malaysia around 66th.

Sigh…higher than Brazil, which I suppose should mean a lot to you.

Bottom line is Malaysia and Indonesia are Muslim-majoirty states, ergo you don’t see them as potentially successful…spare me the roundabout answers and misuse of quesitonable metrics.

Why did Europe overtake China, India and Persia during that time? These empires all had great advantages of England, France in terms of wealth yet they were surpassed.

In terms of the Ottomans, great is an overstatement, as no single European nation exceeded the Ottomans on all levels at the time.

It is complex why the Ottoman empire fell, but if one had to sum it up succintly, I would opt to suggest that it was the ineffectual nature of Ottoman governance (which I simply call corruption), combined with being pitted against a triad of powers who collectivley the Ottomans could not compete with.

The “sick man” characterization was more fantasy of bigoted European leadership and psudeo-intellectuals who were in the industry of demonizing the Ottomans.

The Ottomans did indeed keep up with the time, and the religious scholarship hardly had influence or sway on matters this complex.

The Ottoman military decline started in the 1700’s, as it was no longer an expanding power, while Europe were in the midst of their explotative ventures.

Judges are checked by the power of removal by the Senate, although this is very rarely exercised in practice and it has never successfully done for a Supreme Court Justice.

It’s extremely rare…rare enough to be considered useless theory. A judge has more authority in the courtroom over the average citizenry than any other posting I can think of…and that this group is closed to outside scrutiny (they’re self governing) is questionable.

The point is an example of a successful system’s separation of powers. What separation is there under Islamist systems (although Iran does have some checks and balances)?

Which one, and at what point in time? Under monarchies none. Under republics, some. There’s no standard to aspire to, so one can very well take a utilitarian view on this matter…so long as they are not be bogged down by anti-Islamic hysterics, of course.

It is not nonsense but a fact. Religious power in the US is not held by government officials but by leaders of churches, mosques, synagogues.

And the point is?

The Rashidun era united all power in one man. Isn’t this the ideal Islamists seek to go back to?

That’s as absurd as saying since there is a Prime Minister, or a single president, it’s equivlent to saying that elections are the process of bestowing absolute power to a single person.

Exactly–even Islamists engaged in “innovation” and changed shariah on slavery because times changed and even they recognize that with respect to slavery.

It’s not innovation dude…treaties are old hat.

If this can be done in the case of slavery why do Islamists insist on freezing the laws regarding women or religious minorities?

So long as a treaty doesn’t contradict existing laws (as there is no law saying there must be slaves), anything is possible. What laws do you refer to in particular? Anyhow what people do and do not choose to reflect on is a function of contemporary circumstance, and not the sophistry of those who will never be satisfied. So I have no idea why Islamists insist on this or that.

The bedroom is part of the public sphere?

Er…if you want it to be…public sexuality is not in the “bedroom” by any sane measure, though…

You can have 9th century laws but you have to recognize the price.

Shrugs…similar laws have been in Europe and elsehwere well into the 1800s, so perhaps we should use 18th century as the epoch in quesiton?

I hear Muslims complain all the time about why the Islamic world is behind the rest of the world and falling further and further behind yet no one ever connects the dots to see the reasons for the decline.

Stare at a stucco cieling long enough, then the dots seem to form images that only one can see…please don’t be too upset if people refuse to “see” your delusions.

Fornication was frowned upon by Western culture for centuries. No law was ever passed to encourage it. It was just an inevitable result of increasing liberty and openess in Western countries.

It was explicitly decriminalized.

Of the list of priorities in the US prostitution is very low. There is no “war” on it like there is on drugs. When the US was founded fornication was not one the things it was created to stop; in Iran that was one of the things the mullahs were complaining about and promising to crush.

LOL…at the time the US was established it was taken for granted that such things should not be given free hand. What on earth are you talking about?

The US is not a utopia. It has flaws but fortunately it has a system which allows it to constantly innovate and change with the times.

It’s overstated. America has a two party poltical system with very little paramters for change. Significant social change happened at two periods in it’s epoch, the civil war and once again during the 60’s. No fundemental change happened otherwise. I consider China’s complete and rapid change in economic systems much more efficient and impressive, if change is an indicator of “progress”. I would suggest that America circa 1950’s, minus the racist crap, was a great place and at the hieght of it’s power. In terms of raw power, it has perhaps even declined since then.

Secular laws are not nearly as intrusive as shariah.

Irrelevant. All laws are intrusive, so the question is if personal opposition to a law implies that the law should not be applied to an individual, this ought to apply equally to secular laws. The nature of the law is not in quesiton, but the fact that it is imposed on an individual.

Moreover, in secular democracies you have an opportunity to change the law through the democratic process.

It’s rare that laws change as a result through democratic processes. Some laws, such as legalization of homosexul marriage, are done without public consultation at all.

Under shariah the laws are controlled by unelected religious clerics, who usually are uneducated in matters other than religion yet are tasked with regulating all aspects of society.

This is a strawman. It is not mandatory that in Shariah the people enforcing the law, or presiding over it, have no education other than religous education. Regulating all aspects of society? Overstatement.

In the US we didn’t like Bush and his party was booted from a majority to a small minority in both houses of Congress and his party was crushed in the 2008 presidential election.

So what? The damage was done. The same peole who booted him out suported him to the tune of an 80% approval for his war in Iraq…I fail to be impressed.

In Iran if you don’t like Khameni, if you don’t like Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, or didn’t like Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, etc. there are no options for change.

Khameni, who is not the highest ranking reliigous official btw, can in fact be kicked out of power by a clerical body. In any case, Khameni’s role is guardian of the state ideology, a role taken upon the a commited hoard (be they jurists, journalists, academics, politicians, or otherwise) in Western nations. To ask for change at that level is to ask for liberal democratic countries to support and foster movements that are anti-liberal, or undemocratic. Some claim that this is indeed possible, but in practice it’s not.