"Gorgeous" George Galloway

[Dave Lobster]

lest it's spread pollute the culture of its host country.

I think you'll find that's the idea of islam..

[kro]

bingo.....

[Sanx]

My intention in all of this is to point out that Islam is not indigenous to NZ, and like anything "introduced", has to be handled carefully, lest it's spread pollute the culture of its host country.

I think you'll find that's the idea of islam..

You mean like Christianity, with the countless Missionaries spread far and wide, introducing their beliefs into an area (usually along with sexually-transmitted diseases, rubella, chicken pox, etc) and telling all the natives that the beliefs that have served them for the past xxx years are all wrong?

Like the Christian so-called charities in Africa now, who tie provision of medical aid, food and schooling to the natives being baptised and attending church? Who use aid money given to the poor and starving to build churches and employ more missionaries?

Like the missionary colonists of not that many years ago who executed native leaders if they wouldn't convert to Christianity, imposed Christian-based laws on the lands they'd just taken over and all the people who happened to be living there?

Yup - it's a phemonen peculiar to Islam, alright.

[kro]

Never having said Christianity was flawless, these comments are immaterial to my base "argument" regarding the spread of Islam, and thus I will not address the loosely bundled half facts contained within your post.

If you use the introduction of Christianity into a foreign nation a negative occurrence, how much more will the rise of yet another fiercely militant religion then scar the politics of the country even further?.

When you "defect from Christianity to Islam the parishoners say " oh bugger", when the reverse occurs, the person is on a hitlist, and targeted for death.

If Islam is given more and more freedoms, and given a greater amount of social influence, what will become of NZ?.

[Dave Lobster]

You mean like Christianity, with the countless Missionaries spread far and wide, introducing their beliefs into an area (usually along with sexually-transmitted diseases, rubella, chicken pox, etc) and telling all the natives that the beliefs that have served them for the past xxx years are all wrong?

Like the Christian so-called charities in Africa now, who tie provision of medical aid, food and schooling to the natives being baptised and attending church? Who use aid money given to the poor and starving to build churches and employ more missionaries?

They can go all go in the same chamber as far as I'm concerned.

If Islam is given more and more freedoms, and given a greater amount of social influence, what will become of NZ?.

The same as what's happened to the UK.

[scracha]

The same as what's happened to the UK.

Ain't that the truth.

Did someone mention strong mauri blood?

[Sanx]

[YOUTUBE]UY-ZrwFwLQg[/YOUTUBE]

[pete376403]

i dont need to read it .. ive lived it


fisk is a hack

Interesting. Both you and street gerbil say its more or less outright lies. Could either of you point to any of these lies in the book? Because I am reading it, and so far everything I've read appears to be a provable fact, even if not particularly palatable to either US or Israeli readers.
However - I'd love to be proved wrong. Just one demonstrable lie.

BTW if you haven't read the book, I'd understand. It's over 1000 pages, and no pictures

[Sanx]

Interesting. Both you and street gerbil say its more or less outright lies. Could either of you point to any of these lies in the book? Because I am reading it, and so far everything I've read appears to be a provable fact, even if not particularly palatable to either US or Israeli readers.
However - I'd love to be proved wrong. Just one demonstrable lie.

BTW if you haven't read the book, I'd understand. It's over 1000 pages, and no pictures

I haven't read it, simply because I don't trust a word that Robert Fisk says. I've seen too many of his reports on Lebanon and Israel to take him seriously any more. He's certainly no friend of the US and Israel (which itself is not a problem); but his dislike of those two powers means he conveniently fails to mention counter-arguments. A job of a journalist is to report. To provide balanced impartial reportage. He doesn't. He reports only those things which support his personal political viewpoints and simply disregards anything else.

As for his book; he's too clever to lie outright in it. But what you must ask yourself is what he's not mentioning. For instance...

A regular feature of Israeli / Palestinian clashes were pictures and reports of Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian youths throwing stones. How many reports did you see where the Palestinian snipers, in buildings behind and above the stone-throwers were shown? Very few, I'd wager, but they were always there.

You may also remember those pictures of a twelve year-old boy and his father sheltering behind a concrete water pipe in the middle of a shoot-out between Israeli forces and Palestinian militia. Happened in 2000 at a place called Netzarim Junction and was featured mainly as a Palestinian cameraman working for France 2 caught the whole episode on camera as the twelve year-old was shot dead and the father gravely injured. Palestinian apologists siezed on this incident as a stark example of the inhumanity of Israeli forces, how they deliberately targeted an innocent and unarmed child.

Robert Fisk jumped on this incident and used his syndication in a number of western papers to launch stinging attacks on the Israeli Defence Forces, Ariel Sharon and pretty much anyone else he could think of. His one source, the Palestinian cameraman who shot the footage, was claimed to have given an affidavit indicating the shots came from the Israeli position. Except he denies he ever gave that statement. The footage was unclear and did not show the moment of death. There is considerable doubt and continued uncertainly as to a) whether the child was ever shot, b) whether he was killed, c) where the bullets came from and d) the extent to which the whole incident was staged.

How much of this uncertainly do you see in Robert Fisks reports? Answer: sweet fuck all. He still mentions the kid's death in articles seven years later, without ever appearing to mention that there is any doubt about the incident. He treats it as a fait accompli. Any journalist worth his salt would not continually refer to such an incident without bringing up the varied investigations and law suits that have resulted from it.

Robert Fisk? There are few journalists who I despise. He is one of them.

[pete376403]

That "incident" gets thirteen lines (in a footnote) in 1334 pages. And to me it seems reasonably well balanced. Quote :The video and the photographs of the twelve year old falling lifeless in his fathers arms became one of the iconic images of the second intifada, and the israelis quickly erased all trace of the killing by demolishing the wall behind which they had taken cover. An isreali military investigation then attempted to prove that palestinians had been responsible their deaths - and successfully persuaded Americas CBS to air their bogus "findings" on the 60 minutes program "One gets the impression" Israeli knesset member Ophir Pines-Paz bravely pointed out "that instead of genuinely confronting this incident the IDF has chosen to stage a ficticious re-enactment and cover up the incident by means of an enquiry with foregone conclusions and the sole purpose of of which is to clear the IDF of responsibility for al-Duras death". Western reporters who investigated the killings concluded the the israelis had shot both the son and the father, who survived, although the israelis soldiers resposible may not have been able to see them behind the wall" unquote.
I'll grant you that a member of the Israeli Knesset probably isn't as authorative as an unamed Wikipedia contributor

[Sanx]

That "incident" gets thirteen lines (in a footnote) in 1334 pages. And to me it seems reasonably well balanced. Quote :The video and the photographs of the twelve year old falling lifeless in his fathers arms became one of the iconic images of the second intifada, and the israelis quickly erased all trace of the killing by demolishing the wall behind which they had taken cover. An isreali military investigation then attempted to prove that palestinians had been responsible their deaths - and successfully persuaded Americas CBS to air their bogus "findings" on the 60 minutes program "One gets the impression" Israeli knesset member Ophir Pines-Paz bravely pointed out "that instead of genuinely confronting this incident the IDF has chosen to stage a ficticious re-enactment and cover up the incident by means of an enquiry with foregone conclusions and the sole purpose of of which is to clear the IDF of responsibility for al-Duras death". Western reporters who investigated the killings concluded the the israelis had shot both the son and the father, who survived, although the israelis soldiers resposible may not have been able to see them behind the wall" unquote.
I'll grant you that a member of the Israeli Knesset probably isn't as authorative as an unamed Wikipedia contributor

That's well-balanced? I'd love to see an example of baised reporting then...

No mention of:

• The fake affidavit attributed to the Palestinian camera-man, which formed the basis for the many reports (including Fisk's) condemning the Israeli's actions
• The fact the IDF initially admitted responsibility but only later after an investigation concluded that the child had "probably" been killed by Palestinian fire.
• The journalist responsible for the voice-over, Charles Enderlin, lied about the existing of fottage showing the actual shooting. This was confirmed after the all footage was reviewed by three senior French journalists working for independant organisations.
• The same footage was also shown to a journalist from the International Herald Tribune who stated the same thing.
• An investigation carried out by Ester Shapiro (probably Jewish, going by the name) for the German TV channel ARD, concluded that the boy could not have been shot by the Israelis. It also found the Palestinians had no carried out any form of investigation themselves, including collecting ballistics evidence from the child's body.
• Richard Landes, a Boston University professor, studied the full footage plus other footage from the same day an concluded the scene had probably been faked.
• The 'fictitious re-enactment' was actually done by an Israeli physicist and an Israeli engineer - not the Israeli army - though the army hired them to do it. The engineer told a CBS crew that he believed the shooting had been carried out by Palestinian gunmen in collusion with the cameraman to produce a power anti-Israeli propagand symbol. The IDF ordered the engineer off the investigation immediately and refused to publish the results.
• The fact that another journalist asked why, based upon the length and position of the shadows, the funeral appeared to happen before the boy was allegedly shot. He also asked why the father had no blood on him, having just been shot in the stomach, plus a few other questions to boot.

If Robert Fisk was being impartial and unbiased, he would have mentioned this, rather than pick the one Israeli official who disagreed with the IDF's findings, omitting to mention other investigations and evidence, getting key facts wrong about the Israeli army investigation, and then saying "Western reporters who investigated the killings concluded the the israelis had shot both the son and the father" without actually mentioning who the reporters were, or mentioning the fair few that concluded precisely the opposite.

If anything, the piece you quoted simply reinforced my point that Fisk is a disreputable lump of shit.

[Skyryder]

Why the fuck did they go to Iraq anyway? I mean we were in Afganistan looking for Bin Laden and his chronies then suddenly we were in Irq going after Hussein again. What the fuck?

The answer to question one was that the UN were coming under increasing pressure to withdraw from Iraq due to their failure to discover Weapons of Mass Destruction i.e Nukes. The withdrawal of the UN inspectors would have allowed Saddam to 'restart' his nuclear programme. Of equal importance Bush hope to establish a 'friendly' regime sympethetic to Amerca's aim of destroying bin Laden and his organisation. Problem was Bush never said this in public but any self respecting Middle east analalyst will, and have, come to this conclusion. Due to Bushes failure to find any WOMD Bushes credibilty suffered to the extant that now most belive that America went into Iraq for the oil. It did not.

Skyryder

[scracha]

Due to Bushes failure to find any WOMD Bushes credibilty suffered to the extant that now most belive that America went into Iraq for the oil. It did not.
Skyryder

Aye it did

[Skyryder]

Aye it did

If Iraq oil was so important to the US the American and coalition forces could have continued on to Bagdad. They did not. And the reason they did not is that the Arab forces would not support a full scale invasion of another Arab country. Not a great deal had changed in Middle Eastern politics in respect of the Palistinian problem until 9/11. 9/11 was the catalyst for the invasion of Iraq. It allowed for the overthrow of Saddam and the establishment of a friendly Middle Eastern regime for the purpose of intelligence gathering against bin Laden and other hostile Middle Eastern regimes. As I mentioned in my earlier post, that most believe that America went in for the oil, indicates how successful opposition to American interests have been.

Skyryder

[scracha]

9/11 was the catalyst for the invasion of Iraq. It allowed for the overthrow of Saddam and the establishment of a friendly Middle Eastern regime for the purpose of intelligence gathering against bin Laden and other hostile Middle Eastern regimes. As I mentioned in my earlier post, that most believe that America went in for the oil, indicates how successful opposition to American interests have been.

Skyryder

I'm sorry but what has 9/11 to do with Iraq? Would have made more sense to invade Saudi Arabia if that was the justification. Friendly middle eastern regime? Oh you must mean the puppet government put in place by the Americans that will be overthrown in the not to distant future.

As for intelligence gathering, they could have done that with their "friends" in Isreal, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and to a lesser extent Pakistan.