To the left is Norma Hassan. She was a Christian school teacher from Lebanon. She blew herself up as part of an effort to expel Israeli occupation forces from southern Lebanon. She brought 7 people down with her.
But isn't this all about 72 virgins? Isn't it about jihad? Isn't it because Islam is a violent religion? Isn't it because these people hate freedom and democracy?
To me anybody that can think there way out of a paper bag should be able to figure out the motivations of suicide terrorists. They say it repeatedly. Their actions are very consistent with their statements. And now Robert Pape has shown based on evaluations of the terrorist's profiles what the motivations are and are not. It's not about religion. It's not about poverty. It's not about lack of education. It's not about jealousy of prosperity or about fear of western values. This is about weak parties living in a homeland that they regard as occupied by an outside force.
Consider some of the facts that many regard as so paradoxical. Most of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. But they were our allies. Most were Sunni Muslims, not more radical Shia Muslims. Mohammad Atta was well educated and from a wealthy family. What kind of sense does this make? It makes perfect sense if you ready Robert Pape. There were U.S. troops present in Saudi Arabia at the time, and Atta and others regard that as an occupying force.
If you do read Pape you might assume he'd come to leftist conclusions. It was pretty staggering though for me to read his final thoughts. What to do to resolve the problem? Our military presence in the Middle East is the chief motor for Arab antagonism towards us. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam feel the same way towards the Sri Lankan military. Hamas and Hezbollah feel the same way toward Israel. Should we just leave and wash our hands of the region?
That's not really an option for Pape. Why? Well we need their oil. His solution is to pull out as much as possible, but be ready to pounce if necessary. Basically these natives are sitting on our oil, so we have to do what's necessary to protect our property, but don't overdo it and aggravate them. It's kind of an outright commitment to empire as I read it.
The educated of course. Interesting polling data on the question here.
You may have heard that prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan the Taliban had successfully basically shut down opium production (see here). It has since taken off again under the U.S. occupation. Is that just a mistake or is that designed?
According to some critics you would expect drug sales in regions where the CIA operates. This is an effort to raise untraceable money in order to engage in covert activity. I remember reports of a plane traced to the CIA that crashed with tons of cocaine aboard. Of course Noriega worked for the CIA and was a drug trafficker.
So now in Afghanistan Karzai, the formerly favored U.S. candidate and now president has a brother alleged to be involved in the drug trade that is also alleged to be on the CIA payroll. Check it out here.
When I first heard Ron Paul say that the CIA should be eliminated I thought he was crazy. I've since come on board fully.
I've just started a book called Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Did you know that the most prolific suicide bombers prior to 9/11 were the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. This is a secular group that regarded their land as being occupied by a foreign entity.
Of course Palestinians are known for suicide bombing. Turns out they regard their territory as occupied by a foreign entity.
Since 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan we've seen dramatic spikes in suicide bombing in both of those states now that the natives regard their territory as occupied by a foreign entity. Should we have expected anything different?
The data show that suicide terrorism is not about religion, as many of my secular friends seem prone to believe.
"Get on line right now. 313 838-1035"
And so I did on Friday like I've often done. Somebody's got to do it. He demonizes people like me 4 hours a day. His listeners need an itsy bitsy bit of the other side of the story from someone. If not me then who?
I haven't had much opportunity to catch Bob Dutko lately, but I listened to about 15 minutes on Thursday as I ran out to grab a bite to eat. He had an agnostic on and he repeated an argument he's often made. "Why wouldn't you accept the testimony of the eyewitnesses about Jesus? We have historical documented fact from actual eyewitnesses to Jesus." The stupefied agnostic said pretty much nothing in reply.
I thought maybe I'd get a chance to call in Friday and if I did I'd ask him why he thinks the NT contains eyewitness reporting? That's a pretty good topic for an "Open Line Friday", right?
No dice. After getting through to the screener, and having the screener come on and ask me to clarify my question a couple of times (which I think was about as straightforward a question as could be asked) the screener came back on to tell me that Bob wouldn't be taking my call. I need to try back Wednesday when Bob's bible expert, Grady McMurtry is on.
I don't know when on Wednesday Grady will be on. I certainly don't know if I'll be free. And why is this a call for Grady? Bob is the one that constantly asserts we have "actual eyewitness documents recorded in history" regarding the life of Jesus. I haven't heard Grady say that, so I'm not calling to challenge Grady. And what if I don't get through and I get a busy signal? Wait a month for Grady to be back?
Often the talks with Grady are kind of a disaster. He's not usually in studio but on the phone and he can't hear when the caller wants to interject and there is lots more confusion.
But what's the deal here? Bob asserts that he loves to hear from skeptics, agnostics, and atheists. He brags that he shoves them to the front of the line. And Fridays are about anything the callers want to talk about. So what gives?
Also I find it interesting that some of my Christian acquaintances think Bob does a pretty good job kicking my butt. That's fine with me that they think that. But it doesn't seem that Bob wants to take those opportunities. The prior time I called I was screened and re-screened and finally not put on the air on one Friday. The following Friday I asked the exact same question I intended to ask the prior week, so there was time to prepare if Bob wanted to. Again I was screened and re-screened by Jen. Jen seems like a nice person and I get the feeling she's simply acting as Bob's mouthpiece as if my questions were unclear.
I'll try and listen Wednesday in order to get through to Bob and Grady. I might miss. If I do I might try to get through again Friday. Maybe they'll tell me to try back in a month when Grady is on again. It's Open Line Friday, but no bible questions? Or no bible questions from me?
I was curious due the health care debate if it's really true that Canadians pay more in taxes than Americans do. Do they actually pay less and do it without running a deficit like we do? Here's what I found.
According to Wikipedia Canadian taxes amount to 33.4% of GDP whereas in the United States taxes amount to 28.2% of GDP. Canada typically operates at a surplus of about 1% of GDP compared to the U.S. which runs a deficit of about 4%. According to this website GDP in Canada is $39,300 per capita whereas in the United States it's $47,000. This means that Canadians pay $13,126 in taxes as compared to $13,254 in the United States. And their health care is fully paid for, whereas my employer and I pay huge bucks for my coverage.
Consider our health care costs. Look at what we're paying (though keep in mind that our government also pays the majority of our medical bills already).
Well, we've got a great system, some might say. Not according to the World Health Organization. France has an amazing health care system, with doctors that come to your home, crazy support for pregnant women. They do it at a cost of $3662 per capita verses $7098 in the U.S. I got these figures based on the 2005 % of GDP on health care compared to the 2008 per capita GDP figures, so it's a little skewed because I'm not using the latest #'s on health care, but it's giving us a sense of things.
Not that I'm a huge fan of Obama Care, but it seems we could adopt any other countries' system and do better than we're doing. Unfortunately what we'll get with our crony capitalist system is the worst of all worlds. We'll retain the features that keep us absurdly overpriced (third payer, no negotiating for reduced prices based on bulk purchasing) and adopt the worst features of other nations (less medical advancement).
Despite repeated warnings to back off on the insults over at str, as I discussed before here, Jason Engwer still just cannot resist. He's still doing it. In comes Amy again, the Christian moderator, to ask him why he thinks it is necessary to waste time talking about what people do. She says "We can see what people do. You don't need to take time away from your arguments to tell us." She goes on to say "if you can't represent Christ to people--Christ, who treats you in a way you do not in the least deserve--then you can't stay."
I think this is worth pointing out only because as Jason continues to insult new people he comes in contact with, and as he continues to use the same techniques of pointing to voluminous writings that supposedly reply to a given argument but in fact don't, or as he confidently asserts the victorious nature of his own arguments, I like to have sources available for these people so they can see that what he's doing is nothing new, so don't take it personally or seriously.
His inability to resist the temptation to insult reminded me immediately of Homer Simpson. Homer can't resist the temptation to eat rotten meat, because it is cheap. In Homer and Apu we observe Apu, the owner of the Kwik-E-Mart ripping off his customers. He overwrites an expiration date on some ham.
Apu: Jiminy Cricket! Wooh, expired ham. [scribbles over the expiry date]
Oh, this time I have gone to far. No, no one will fall for --
Homer: Woo hoo! Cheap meat! [picks it up] Ooh, this one's open.
[starts eating it]
At home on the couch, Homer continues devouring the expired ham, but his stomach begins to rebel.
[eats ham, but his stomach groans]
Stomach...churning!
[eats some more]
Bowels...clenching! Not much time...must...finish...[eats some more]
Incensed, Homer returns to the Kwik-E-Mart to have it out with Apu.
Homer: Your old meat made me sick!
Apu: Oh, I'm so sorry. [gets a pail of shrimp] Please accept five pounds of frozen shrimp?
Homer: [holds one up, sniffs it] This shrimp isn't frozen! And it
smells funny.
Apu: OK, ten pounds.
Homer: Woo hoo!
