Poor Treatment of Muslim Passengers

[ghalfaire]

On 11/30/2015, 1:50:31, Abu3baid said:

I don't mind the added attention, what I mind is being subjugated to humiliation after I have passed all the necessary security measures and I'm about to board my plane, or even worst if I am already on the plane (and not because of my actions, but because I have an accent or the beard that I have)

I think there has been enough speaking out against the innocent slaughter.  What does this have anything to do with not being treated like a human who passed all security checks?

The spoiler is all OT

  Reveal hidden contents

 Also, Just in case you don't read the news, both the US and Isreal kill innocent people, the difference is that it's state sanctioned and done with 5,000 LB bombs so it doesn't count..  Here are a couple of snippets for you.  

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/06/doctors-without-borders-airstrike-afghanistan-us-account-changes-again

 

 

 

Understood, but eventually if we keep this up there will be concentration camps set up to keep us all Muslims away from everyone so that people can feel safe.

I don't want to respond to your individual points but would make a couple of comments.  First we didn't start this "war", we were attacked and over 3000 of our citizens died. This was accomplished by only a handful of individuals but obviously supported by many Muslims.  I saw them dancing in the streets on the news in in various major cities in the Middle East in celebration of the twin towers falling.  Even then we didn't respond with force but rather asked the leadership of Afghanistan to hand over the ones that has planned and executed this attack so they could be brought to justice as the criminals they were.  Afghanistan's government refused and only then did we respond with force.  

Secondly, for what ever it is worth to you, I and many others never thought the invasion of Iraq was a good idea.  I would think history has born that out that it was a mistake.  But I won't apologize for the United States even though I know we have made mistakes in our history.  But no one can change the past and I believe we do try to learn from our mistakes and we don't enslave people of counties we have invaded.  Instead we usually rebuild the war damage and try to free those that were enslaved, then leave.

In war there is always collateral damage.  Even in today's world with modern and precise weapons there will be mistakes.  But we never intend to slaughter innocent individuals or attack targets of no military value.  But I know it happens and it is a terrible thing when innocents are killed, whether regardless of their religious beliefs.   But, again, it is not the policy for the USA to target innocents.  

Finally I know that the "war on terror" can never be won with the Military alone.  It has to happen by winning the heart and minds of all of us that we can coexist in this world in spite of our differences.  I really don't know how that can be accomplished until the Islamic leadership publicly disavows terrorist attacks and embraces the concept of coexistence.  It is a matter of trust.  As long as it take so few to do such significant damage and as long as Islamic leader encourages terror with public statements of "death to America" I don't see how it will change and we are in for a very long war.

I don't believe there will ever again be concentration camps of US citizens in the USA.  As I said, we do try to learn from our mistakes. 

[Ernest Jones]

1 hour ago, ghalfaire said:

  First we didn't start this "war", we were attacked and over 3000 of our citizens died.

 

Surely you don't think that happened in a vacuum, just "out of the blue"? There was a fair bit of history leading up to that point.

[boogielicious]

1 minute ago, Ernest Jones said:

Surely you don't think that happened in a vacuum, just "out of the blue"? There was a fair bit of history leading up to that point.

I agree with you here. This has been going on for a very long time. What is surprising is people acting like it is recent.

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, ghalfaire said:

I don't want to respond to your individual points but would make a couple of comments.  First we didn't start this "war", we were attacked and over 3000 of our citizens died. This was accomplished by only a handful of individuals but obviously supported by many Muslims.  I saw them dancing in the streets on the news in in various major cities in the Middle East in celebration of the twin towers falling.  Even then we didn't respond with force but rather asked the leadership of Afghanistan to hand over the ones that has planned and executed this attack so they could be brought to justice as the criminals they were.  Afghanistan's government refused and only then did we respond with force.  

Secondly, for what ever it is worth to you, I and many others never thought the invasion of Iraq was a good idea.  I would think history has born that out that it was a mistake.  But I won't apologize for the United States even though I know we have made mistakes in our history.  But no one can change the past and I believe we do try to learn from our mistakes and we don't enslave people of counties we have invaded.  Instead we usually rebuild the war damage and try to free those that were enslaved, then leave.

In war there is always collateral damage.  Even in today's world with modern and precise weapons there will be mistakes.  But we never intend to slaughter innocent individuals or attack targets of no military value.  But I know it happens and it is a terrible thing when innocents are killed, whether regardless of their religious beliefs.   But, again, it is not the policy for the USA to target innocents.  

Finally I know that the "war on terror" can never be won with the Military alone.  It has to happen by winning the heart and minds of all of us that we can coexist in this world in spite of our differences.  I really don't know how that can be accomplished until the Islamic leadership publicly disavows terrorist attacks and embraces the concept of coexistence.  It is a matter of trust.  As long as it take so few to do such significant damage and as long as Islamic leader encourages terror with public statements of "death to America" I don't see how it will change and we are in for a very long war.

I don't believe there will ever again be concentration camps of US citizens in the USA.  As I said, we do try to learn from our mistakes. 

You keep saying "we" when referring to the USA, which is great, but it overshadows a main point of all of this, which is that it's the governments that are handling all of this mess.  I had no say in whether or not we should have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan, or any of the myriad other stuff we've done in the middle east for the last 3 1/2 (or more) decades.  Likewise, the vast majority of Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians have no say in what their governments or militarys or rebel forces are doing either.  In neither case is it fair to hold us responsible for what our governments, etc are choosing to do.  We should be able to recognize that all of those innocent Syrians have as much to do with ISIS beheading an American reporter as we have to do with a "Christian" who shoots a Muslim or burns down a mosque.

Consequently, it shouldn't be hard for us to separate the person from the origin country or religion and recognize that most of them (us) are humans first.

 

[newtogolf]

32 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

You keep saying "we" when referring to the USA, which is great, but it overshadows a main point of all of this, which is that it's the governments that are handling all of this mess.  I had no say in whether or not we should have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan, or any of the myriad other stuff we've done in the middle east for the last 3 1/2 (or more) decades.  Likewise, the vast majority of Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians have no say in what their governments or militarys or rebel forces are doing either.  In neither case is it fair to hold us responsible for what our governments, etc are choosing to do.  We should be able to recognize that all of those innocent Syrians have as much to do with ISIS beheading an American reporter as we have to do with a "Christian" who shoots a Muslim or burns down a mosque.

Consequently, it shouldn't be hard for us to separate the person from the origin country or religion and recognize that most of them (us) are humans first.

 

11 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Ok good. :). You had made a comment up thread (or perhaps in another thread - I get them mixed up sometimes :P) that sounded like you were discounting these domestic terrorists because "they weren't classified as such" or something along those lines.

Exactly, and let's be honest, if these countries weren't sitting on huge oil deposits, Russia, China, Europe and the US wouldn't care what happened there.  We and other countries wanted access and control over the oil fields and manipulated the people and governments to ensure we would have access to the oil at the lowest prices.

In Syria and Afghanistan we've switched sides at least twice, it's no shock the people in those countries hate us.  Conversely, the radicals don't need an excuse to spread hate against us and execute terrorist actions against us and our allies.

[ghalfaire]

4 hours ago, Ernest Jones said:

Surely you don't think that happened in a vacuum, just "out of the blue"? There was a fair bit of history leading up to that point.

No I don't think it happened in a vacuum.  It happened because we went to the aid of Kuwait at the behest of several Middle East States.  In the process of freeing Kuwait we stationed troops in Saudi Arabia and Osama Bin Laden felt we had insulted Islam by being in the Holy Land.   At least that is what he said.  Somehow i feel he should have taken the issue up with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.  Because as I said earlier WE came as we were asked to and freed some people who had been enslaved, then we left.   Certainly we did nothing, in my opinion, that should be cause for  3000 to die that had nothing to do with that event.  

[rkim291968]

52 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

No I don't think it happened in a vacuum.  It happened because we went to the aid of Kuwait at the behest of several Middle East States.

It was brewing much before than that - our support of Israel, e.g.   Muslim world view of the US was pretty bad well before Iraq's invasion into Kuwait.   

[14ledo81]

3 minutes ago, rkim291968 said:

It was brewing much before than that - our support of Israel, e.g.   Muslim world view of the US was pretty bad well before Iraq's invasion into Kuwait.   

 

5 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I agree with you here. This has been going on for a very long time. What is surprising is people acting like it is recent.

 

5 hours ago, Ernest Jones said:

Surely you don't think that happened in a vacuum, just "out of the blue"? There was a fair bit of history leading up to that point.

 

Certainly you folks don't think we (the USA) were deserving of the attack?

[rkim291968]

22 minutes ago, 14ledo81 said:

 

 

 

Certainly you folks don't think we (the USA) were deserving of the attack?

No one deserves such attack.   My point was ... this is an issue much more complicated than the sequence laid out by another poster.  

[Golfingdad]

25 minutes ago, 14ledo81 said:

Certainly you folks don't think we (the USA) were deserving of the attack?

And certainly you don't actually think that somebody being able to recognize what others' reasoning and drive may be would equate with them thinking its right?

[14ledo81]

2 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

And certainly you don't actually think that somebody being able to recognize what others' reasoning and drive may be would equate with them thinking its right?

Of course.

Maybe I was just "seeing" something that wasn't there.

 

 

 

[Ernest Jones]

5 minutes ago, 14ledo81 said:

Of course.

Maybe I was just "seeing" something that wasn't there.

 

 

 

I suspect so. Nothing wrong with patriotism, but don't let it override your intelligence. This "war" didn't happen spontaneously. 

[Mr. Desmond]

3 hours ago, rkim291968 said:

It was brewing much before than that - our support of Israel, e.g.   Muslim world view of the US was pretty bad well before Iraq's invasion into Kuwait.   

When the US established airbases in Saudi, I believe it sowed the seeds ...  Remember whose citizens hijacked the aircraft on 9/11.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Mr. Desmond

[JonMA1]

Blaming civilians for the evil that their governments do is the same as blaming members of a culture or religion based on acts performed by a small percentage of war mongers.

Spoiler

 

Here's a second-hand story that is almost on-topic. I once worked for a woman who was a young child in Nazi Germany during WWII. She moved to the states after the war. As an adult years later, she was at a party where several WWII era men were criticizing the Vietnam war. She listened to them go on and on about how "we" never went after innocent civilians, until she could no longer take it. She reminded them of the indiscriminate bombing of German cities, of how her family, who lived in a rural area, would emerge from the root cellar after an attack to see other families completely wiped out. That's war. 

I believe that there are rare circumstances that necessitate war. In my lifetime, I felt Afghanistan was justifiable. But its a bit easier to think this way while typing on my computer, insulated from all the horrific things that come from it.

 

 

[Abu3baid]

16 hours ago, ghalfaire said:

his was accomplished by only a handful of individuals but obviously supported by many Muslims.  I saw them dancing in the streets on the news in in various major cities in the Middle East in celebration of the twin towers falling.

Since you want to bring up dancing as evidence for something, I thought I would share the story of the dancing Israelis that were arrested on 911 and then deported a few months later.. 

The Dancing Israelis

 

16 hours ago, ghalfaire said:

In war there is always collateral damage.  Even in today's world with modern and precise weapons there will be mistakes.  But we never intend to slaughter innocent individuals or attack targets of no military value.  But I know it happens and it is a terrible thing when innocents are killed, whether regardless of their religious beliefs.   But, again, it is not the policy for the USA to target innocents.

Yeah, I guess you are right.. since it wasn't the intention to drop a 5000 lb bomb on some guy's house then that family should just understand and extend the welcome mats everywhere.. please go ahead and bomb us to the stone age since you only have the best of intentions..  innocence death should never be justified with the above in my opinion.. 
 

16 hours ago, ghalfaire said:

I really don't know how that can be accomplished until the Islamic leadership publicly disavows terrorist attacks and embraces the concept of coexistence.

I'm not sure what this means?  I mean the UAE just agreed to send ground troops to Syria to help the Russians.  Jordan has been running bombing squads against ISIS in Iraq and had one of their soldiers burnt, Saudi Arabia is executing ISIS terrorists or people convicted of terrorism and ISIS just issued another warning to them.  What exactly are you looking for?

 

16 hours ago, ghalfaire said:

As long as it take so few to do such significant damage and as long as Islamic leader encourages terror with public statements of "death to America" I don't see how it will change and we are in for a very long war.

 Can you point out to me who are the Islamic Leaders who made public statements of "Death to America" and are still leaders of anything??  You must be joking, just link a few quotes of this so that we can discuss further.

16 hours ago, ghalfaire said:

I don't believe there will ever again be concentration camps of US citizens in the USA.  As I said, we do try to learn from our mistakes. 

That might be your belief, but did you read what some of the GOP candidates want to do and they are publicly saying?  

 

Edit:  Just a quick search brings up the condemnations of the Paris attacks by Muslim leaders around the world.. 

Condemnation

Quote

Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah said the “criminal acts of terrorism” run “counter to all teachings of holy faith and humanitarian values.”

 

Quote

Joko Widodo, the leader of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, said his nation “condemns the violence that took place in Paris.”

 

Quote

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani condemned the attacks, calling them a “crime against humanity” and said he would postpone his plan to visit France as part of a wider European trip this weekend.

 

Quote

The foreign minister for Qatar, Khaled al-Attiyah, labelled the atrocities “heinous”.

 

Quote

In the UK, leader of the Muslim Council of Great Britain Dr Shuja Shafi, condemned the attacks “in the strongest possible terms,” labelling them “horrific and abhorrent”.

 

 

[boogielicious]

13 hours ago, 14ledo81 said:

 

 

 

Certainly you folks don't think we (the USA) were deserving of the attack?

No, of course not.

What I don't want to happen is for us to make the same mistakes we made in the past and make this a continuum. The west installed the Shah in Iran and that led to the Iranian Revolution. We supported Saddam Hussein as a thorn to the Iranians. Look what that got us. We armed and funded the Mujahiddeen in Afghanistan to be a thorn to the Russians. They became al qaeda. That worked out well.

We can't keep making these mistakes in this region. After WWI, the Allies left Germany in shambles. That led to WWII. After WWII, we smartened up and instead rebuilt West Germany and Japan. They are now allies. Ho Chi Minh was our ally in WWII. We screwed him over letting the French remain as colonial occupiers. He turned to the Chinese. Mistake on our part.

Which do you think will work better in Iraq and Syria? Bomb them over and over again and put in 50,000 ground troops, occupy for 10 years or come to a political solution where Syria and Iraq become economically and politically stable? We've already had two wars with Iraq and it led to this instability.

The Donald Trump strategy will just create a new ISIS ten years from now and we'll be living with this for the next century.

[ghalfaire]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

What I don't want to happen is for us to make the same mistakes we made in the past and make this a continuum. The west installed the Shah in Iran and that led to the Iranian Revolution. We supported Saddam Hussein as a thorn to the Iranians. Look what that got us. We armed and funded the Mujahiddeen in Afghanistan to be a thorn to the Russians. They became al qaeda. That worked out well.

We can't keep making these mistakes in this region. After WWI, the Allies left Germany in shambles. That led to WWII. After WWII, we smartened up and instead rebuilt West Germany and Japan. They are now allies. Ho Chi Minh was our ally in WWII. We screwed him over letting the French remain as colonial occupiers. He turned to the Chinese. Mistake on our part.

Which do you think will work better in Iraq and Syria? Bomb them over and over again and put in 50,000 ground troops, occupy for 10 years or come to a political solution where Syria and Iraq become economically and politically stable? We've already had two wars with Iraq and it led to this instability.

The Donald Trump strategy will just create a new ISIS ten years from now and we'll be living with this for the next century.

There really is no good solution to this conflict that I can see.  I would like to say we should just withdraw and not do no business with the Middle East or allow our citizens to visit there (like Cuba) as we (the USA)  really don't need their Oil anymore.  But if WWII taught us anything I believe it is isolationism won't protect you.  Enemies that have a vision of conquering the world  and believe violence is an acceptable tool to accomplish such domination  will sooner or later be at your doorstep.  Yet since the Middle East is a very complex place to try to do business or just "get along" with.  Since most of the existing countries were just put together by the allies after WWII without respect for ethnic groups, different religions, or tribal affiliations, most middle east individuals don't identify with a specific country but rather as a member of one or more of the other groups.  Seems as if no matter what we do there in dealing with Middle East States, we make mortal enemies of one or more of these groups.  But because of this I don't see any solution to the Middle East situation(s) that is acceptable to all.  It seems to me the only thing we can do is to protect ourselves as best we can and engage with our "friends" in the area.  But we should always remember that this is not our culture and don't try to do any nation building.  We are not ever going to establish a Jeffersonian Democracy like the US has in the Middle East.  That is like trying to teach a bear to read, it is a waste of time and pisses the bear off.  The other thing that would be good to remember is "enemy of my enemy is my friend".  Friend can quickly change however as it did with the Mujahiddeen (one engaged in Jihad).  So we need to have an "agile" policy as to who is friend and who is enemy and keep our own national interest in the forefront. 

[rkim291968]

16 hours ago, Mr. Desmond said:

When the US established airbases in Saudi, I believe it sowed the seeds ...  Remember whose citizens hijacked the aircraft on 9/11.

That, too.   It was another factor out of so many.   I can even see the end of WW II as when many of the seeds were planted.