Cartoons and the United States

[George_Waters]

Would anyone like to offer their theories as to why American flags are being burned and American businesses and government facilities are being picketed and attacked over the cartoons published by European media?

I know the topic of the cartoons has been and is being addressed on other threads, but I am curious only about why the United States has been dragged into this whole mess.

It seems to me as if we are dealing with ignorant, immature opportunist who wish nothing more than to attack everyone different from themselves regardless of facts or the truth.

Thoughts?

 

[Guar_Fan]

I think you are fundamentally right - that the angry mob only distinguishes between ‘us’ and ‘them’

More than 70,000 people flooded the streets of the northwestern city of Peshawar, said Saeed Wazir, a senior police officer. The massive crowd went on a rampage, torching businesses and fighting police, who struck back with tear gas and batons. A bus terminal operated by South Korea’s Sammi Corp. was torched, police said.

Protesters burned a KFC restaurant, three movie theaters and the offices of the main mobile phone company in the country. A Norwegian mobile phone company’s offices were also ransacked. Gunfire was heard near the burning KFC, as police tried to clear people from a main street, witnesses said.

link

Why the United States gets singled out by protestor’s slogans is a bit odder but I am guessing that the United States is seen as the world’s super-power, with its fingers, hidden in shadows, manipulating events. Israel often gets some of the blame and the close ties between Israel and the U.S. is probably fuel for the conspiracy minded.

 

[Eden]

Well, I guess we have clear evidence that for radicals the real enemy is Western culture and the cartoons are a perfect excuse to try to start a war between the Muslim world and the West.

But something else stands out when I see this story on the news. Can someone please explain to me how day after day for weeks, hundreds to thousands of grown men can riot in these cities. I know there are larger implications to their anger but I just can’t get past the question, “Don’t they have jobs?” How in the world do so many people have so much time to burn flags and break Pepsi bottles?

 

[Mike_D30]

Eden:

“Don’t they have jobs?” How in the world do so many people have so much time to burn flags and break Pepsi bottles?

I think that is the real problem Eden, I did two deployments in the Marines to the Middle East, and visited over 10 different Muslim countries. and you’ve never seen so many people just sitting around. In the West you don’t typically see peole just laying around at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday. But in these countries, there would be thousands of people everywhere just laying around on the grass doing nothing with themselves. I think unemployment is very high, and the oppresive regimes they live under keep two social classes them, and the poor. So to keep the peoples outrage focused properly, they demonize the West as the source for their misery.

 

[Eden]

Mike_D30:

I think that is the real problem Eden, I did two deployments in the Marines to the Middle East, and visited over 10 different Muslim countries. and you’ve never seen so many people just sitting around. In the West you don’t typically see peole just laying around at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday. But in these countries, there would be thousands of people everywhere just laying around on the grass doing nothing with themselves. I think unemployment is very high, and the oppresive regimes they live under keep two social classes them, and the poor. So to keep the peoples outrage focused properly, they demonize the West as the source for their misery.

Thanks for giving your first-hand account. That was just such a striking feature of these kinds of protests so I’m glad to have an affirmation. Thank you for serving our country!

 

[George_Waters]

Mike_D30:

I think that is the real problem Eden, I did two deployments in the Marines to the Middle East, and visited over 10 different Muslim countries. and you’ve never seen so many people just sitting around. In the West you don’t typically see peole just laying around at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday. But in these countries, there would be thousands of people everywhere just laying around on the grass doing nothing with themselves. I think unemployment is very high, and the oppresive regimes they live under keep two social classes them, and the poor. So to keep the peoples outrage focused properly, they demonize the West as the source for their misery.

Ah, the tactic of authoritarian and repressive regimes for centuries!

 

[George_Waters]

Are there any Muslims who would like to offer a theory?

 

[Booklover]

George Waters:

Ah, the tactic of authoritarian and repressive regimes for centuries!

Exactly! Muslims keep telling us that Islam is the best system in the world since it supposedly comes from God, but why is it that the rest of the world is living in the 21st century and they stay stuck in the 7th! Muslim countries are among the most undeveloped in the world! They hate the “decadent west” because people here live better than they do claim that it’s our fault that they’re like that, and can’t see that it’s Islam with all its manmade regulations masquerading as God’s laws, that are keeping them down. They remind me of the Pharisees that Jesus rebuked.

 

[GD1960]

Can someone please explain to me how day after day for weeks, hundreds to thousands of grown men can riot in these cities. I know there are larger implications to their anger but I just can’t get past the question, “Don’t they have jobs?” How in the world do so many people have so much time to burn flags and break Pepsi bottles?
Your absolutely right I have often asked myself the question.

I suppose the reason is that they are a product of their own failed culture and religeon I think they probably don’t have jobs and if they did they would probably view rioting in the street burning flags, placing innocent people in fear oif their lives as more important than earning an honest days wage for themselves and their families.

From a purely personal perspective I simply wouldn’t have the time.

Hate is a powerful human emotion and when we see these images on our televisiones it should show us just how much these people hate us, they dont discriminate between America and western Europe to them we are one in the same Christian infadels.

They have turned a political grievence (which I believe they have some justification) into a holy war which is consuming them.

They are not ( in my view) the minority within the Islamic faith the moderates would have us believe, Hatred for the west and everything it stands for has become fundamental to them.

It is my view that the the real moderates within Islam are those who dont hate us.

Britain like many other west europeam countries has seen a massive influx of muslims from the repressed regions of the middle east and central asia over recent years, from what i’ve seen these people make little or no attempt to intigrate into our society, although they are happy to accept the handouts offered by us they vorificiously reject any attempt to accept our way of life or values.

I’m not saying our values are on a higher plain than theirs but they are our values nonetheless and it is at least for the meantime our country and unless we wake up and start smelling the roses it will be their country, and before long they’ll be dragging the whole of the western world down to their level.

I honestly believe that the fundamenatl difference between the muslim east and the christian west is that in the west religeon has had to adapt to progress and human and technalogical development while in the the islamic east progress and technalogical developement has been held back by religeon.

The result is western dominance of the world which they (in the east) resent and are jealous of , that resentment & jealousy has led to a fundamental hatred of the us which we would be foolish to ignore or try to appease for much longer.

That fundamental hatred has no problem finding inspiration and motovation from within the koran which is why these fundamentalists have turned this from a political dispute into a jihad.

Many muslim have accused critics of their religeon of misinterperating the scriptures in the koran but have they considered how easy that is to do considering the violent nature of Mohammed and his followers, and surely if critics can misinterperate these verses then people like Osama Bin Laden can do likewise or could it be that Mr Bin Laden and co have got the Koran absolutely right and are only acting in accordance with the what is written?

 

[George_Waters]

GD1960:

Many muslim have accused critics of their religeon of misinterperating the scriptures in the koran but have they considered how easy that is to do considering the violent nature of Mohammed and his followers, and surely if critics can misinterperate these verses then people like Osama Bin Laden can do likewise or could it be that Mr Bin Laden and co have got the Koran absolutely right and are only acting in accordance with the what is written?

Good point!

Welcome to the forums!

 

[BryPGuy89]

George Waters:

Would anyone like to offer their theories as to why American flags are being burned and American businesses and government facilities are being picketed and attacked over the cartoons published by European media?

I know the topic of the cartoons has been and is being addressed on other threads, but I am curious only about why the United States has been dragged into this whole mess.

It seems to me as if we are dealing with ignorant, immature opportunist who wish nothing more than to attack everyone different from themselves regardless of facts or the truth.

Thoughts?

I’d say that it is because we are already there causing problems and what not in the region, just another scapegoat to releive anger and outrage. I have noticed that Christians in general are being targetted so…