some responses
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Are you surprised?Paulinus 31 Dec 2007 14:30
Why do you take any notice of what the UN says? No-one else does.
This is an organization that had China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Algeria, Syria, and Libya on its Human Rights Commission at one time or another.
It is beyond parody.
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NUAUChris Gillibrand 31 Dec 2007 14:43
A new acronym to be added to be added to the alphabet soup of acronyms that designate the organisations festering away in the undergrowth of the UN imperium.
Nations United Against Us (capital or small s can be used).
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Inconsistencies?
MarKat 31 Dec 2007 14:57
Human rights violations?The United Nations isn't even allowed to provide a definitive meaning of what is meant by the term "terrorism" either in relation to what it means, implies or acts purported to be related to it. Damien, in his article here writes:
... "Deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism".
Without a 'consensus' on what is meant by terrorism, the UN is simply reluctant to provide any firm written notation, and yet, you will agree no-doubt, it is well overdue. The UN refuses to engage in dialogue on this point because it brings into question decisions and actions previously taken by western governments that could well be interpreted as state-sponsored acts directly related to inciting acts of terrorism. A requirement has existed in the past by countries pressing for firm resolutions to have been passed on its meaning but, whenever the debate is timetabled for discussion it is vetoed by the United States. The US administration knows that it dare not enter into negotiating descriptive terms because, at every turn, it is seen as culpable by its own actions. Parallel with any form of insurgency comes human rights.
Issues of human rights are endowed for the purposes of protection, freedom and human values. Islamic countries do have a long way to go and perhaps, western enlightenment as by right may be able to offer the benefits it affords, moving forward.
Impounding upon the issue here is the ever increasing freedoms that human rights acquire since globalisation, freedom to do and act within the spirit of the Human Rights Declaration. This doesn't mean supporting acts of terrorism as many Muslim people are upstanding, law abiding citizens committed to the teachings of the Qur'an - family, brotherhood, community and prayer.
markatscotland.blogspot.com------------
Grossly distortedPatrickB 31 Dec 2007 21:59
Pretty sloppy reporting this.First, and I know this is subjective, but having read the full resolution the terms "disgusting" is a little strong, to say the least. It is certainly unbalanced, with specific references only to Islam, but other than that there is not too much there to disagree with I would suggest. Indeed, if anyone bothers to read the transcript of the debate itself (and I have) you will find that the delegations that voted against the resolution generally supported much of its content, other than that it calls out Islam as a specific example without mention of other religions.
That's all opinion of course.
Much more egregious is the following:
"As of today, terrorists have carried out 10,277 separate attacks since September 11, 2001. They all belong to the same religion, and it ain’t Methodism."
Let's analyze this statement briefly. Damian's source is a website called religionofpeace.com. It is true that all the 10,277 acts of terrorism listed by that website were carried out by Muslims. (And it is hardly surprising that a website whose mission is to catalogue acts of terrorism by Muslims should list only acts of terrorism by Muslims). However, what Damian says is that since 9/11 there have been 10,277 acts of terrorism, all carried out by Muslims. Untrue. There have been far more acts of terrorism than that, and Muslims do not have a monopoly - far from it. For example, what about the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the world's most prolific suicide bombers? What about the various terrorist groups in Columbia whose good work continues unabated? What about the (thankfully few now) residual acts of terrorism in Northern Ireland? What about the Maoist terrorists in Nepal?
I could go on but I hope the point is clear. Damian's unambiguous statement is that Muslims are responsible for all acts of terrorism since 9/11. Entirely untrue.
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The Prophet (pbuh)onyerbike 01 Jan 2008 01:03
What do you call a 51-year old man who marries a 7-year old (Aisha) as his third wife and begins having sex with her two years later, when he is 53 and she is 9. Clue: the answer begins with a P. Yes, that's right, you got it, a Prophet.
The thing is that we don't defame Islam by telling the truth about Mohammad: that he waged many aggressive wars, that he raided trading caravans, that he had two poets who made fun of him put to death, that he put to death 700 Jews of the Bani Quraish tribe who had been defeated in battle and captured...that he urged his followers to spread his belief by the sword etc etc. This is not defamation, it is merely history. But it's history that militant Muslims don't want us to know or speak about, because once the reputation of Mohammad is in ruins, what credibility has the Koran.
It is peculiar that the UN wants to protect a political philosophy. Islam is not only a religion, itr is a political plan as well, for the imposition of shariah law. Mosques are not simply places of worship, they are centers of political education, like a party political club or office. Therefore Islam must be subject to criticism like any political project.
The UN just undermines its own limited authority by voting for protecting one religion/politics and not others.
Mo is not a guy I would want to name a kid's teddy bear after.
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Moral InversionMarplot 01 Jan 2008 13:32
Damian is to be commended for reporting this nefarious incident in the first place - whatever his analysis and conclusion may be (with which I incidentally concur).
Even if one didn't view the UN as a body of such colossal and breathtaking hypocrisy, objectivity alone should conclude that given the majority of its members represent various shades of tyranny and international banditry, any resolution it makes on anything can only be seen as contrary to the interests of the few functioning democracies that have any clout at all within it. Yet, when the current US administration denounces this organization for what it is, refuses to acquiesce in its increasingly shrill and outrageous demands, the liberal left consensus in the remaining Western democracies cries foul, ignorant of the fact that the American government is responding to the views of its largely Christian electorate who plainly see it for what it is - and are ridiculed as hillbilly fundamentalists outside the Bible Belt for doing so.
It has long, long been the policy of Arabist and Islamist apologists to stifle any true debate as to the very nature of Islamism (and I use that word, not "Moslem") and its threat to Western values. Too close a scrunity would expose the carefully honed perception of Arab and Islamist "victimhood" in the Western media, not only at the hands of the USA but of its supposed puppet, Israel. If the endemic corruption, sponsored violence, religious oppression, sexism, homophobia and utterly undemocratic nature of the so-called "Palestinian" leadership were ever exposed and treated with the same microscopic, obsessive, compulsive and intrinsically anti-Semitic scrutiny that is meeted out to Israel, their actions in furtherance of their spurious claims to peoplehood would be immediately mitigated in the popular mind. Instead, fully cognizant of the fact that the West is prepared to tolerate any kind of corruption and domestic oppression in the Third World as a result of an inverted (and morally repugnant) racism, they play on the fact that outside America (and until recently, possibly Northern Ireland), liberal Western democrats have no longer any conception at all how fundamentalist religious fanaticism is as much religious as it is political as it can be militaristic.
Damian is quite right to highlight this untold story. It represents a watershed in how the propagandists of terror have won a decisive victory. Just as the fanatical, heretic-burning fundamentalists of Christian intolerance hid behind their habits in the Middle Ages and at the Reformation, so now the latest expression of religious barbarism to haunt the world hide behind Islam. We can only hope that this day does not represent the dying gasps of objectivity and truth, because this resolution was the one vital but heretofore missing component for the topsy-turvy moral inversion it signifies.