Discussion for article #231845
Glimmers of sanity…
Hope it’s contagious.
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Out of the mouths of babes…
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I appreciate the words, but his sincerity is suspect. He’s at war with IS, which is all about killing cartoonists who insult Islam. And he’s also allied to the country that still has a bounty on Salmon Rushdie’s head.
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Perhaps Bill O’Reilly will interview him. Or he could be a guest on Fox and Friends…
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Sanity? Unfortunately that thought, however hopeful, is not likely to see fruition. Hezbollah is just as extreme, just as willing to kill and destroy, as any on the Sunni faction of Islam.
If only leaders of Islam would condemn the attacks.
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hezbollah hasn’t attacked the US. sunni extremists have.
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Nice thought. But his definition of “extremists” extends only to Sunni factions. And may include all Sunnis.
Who was it that attacked the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983? Most authorities believe it was Shia, directed from Tehran. Not to mention the attacks on US troops in and around Baghdad by the al Sadr militia of Moqtada al Sadr.
Agree that he does not have completely clean hands, but it still helps that a Moslem leader denounced these actions.
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Maybe that was blowback from our decision to support Iraq in their war against Iran.
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Finally - I am seeing some leadership speak out against all this Jihad nonsense. For too long purported Islamic leader have stood silent. It is time for every muslim to choose sides. I hate GWB but when it comes to the extremists, you are either with them or against them. Want to see more of this.
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No, not really. Having friends in both faiths, it is fairly clear that the Shia branch is far more modern, and less oppressive, than the Sunni branch. In Tehran, today, women go to college, drive cars, become doctors and scientists - I know a few. They are still hassled by the religious police, can still get into trouble for not wearing a headscarf or dressing provocatively…but they can learn, study, travel, etc. This is UNIMAGINABLE to a Saudi woman. The middle class in Tehran manage to find alcohol, have house parties with dancing and music, the kids skateboard in the streets even. Again, UNIMAGINABLE in the Saudi Kingdom.
Although one of the most liberal societies in the area in many ways, Iran hates the West because BP screwed them over on the original deal to develop their oilfields in the 40s/50s, and then got pissed when a democratically elected President of Iran decided to nationalise them, and take the new found oil wealth to lift Iran out of poverty. So BP had MI6 and the CIA organise a military coup (in effect) and put in place the Shah. The Shah who’s secret police tortured innocents, stole the oil profits for his own use, and terrorised most of Iran. They still hate us for that, for putting him in power so BP could make a few trillion when he signed new contracts with them. It is what put conservative religious leaders in power in Iran, because only they could oust him, and that hatred from the past has kept them there.
Hard to argue, really. We could do far worse than start with a formal apology, really…
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This is more about a Shiite speaking out against Sunni than a man speaking out against terrorism.
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Churchill had to trade on his war-time relationship w/Eisenhower to get the CIA involved in 1953, too. He’d tried to sell Truman on the coup, but was refused.
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Hezbollah is a client of Iran and in Tehran every Friday since 1979 you could hear chants of “Death to America”. In 1983 there was a bombing or the Marine barracks in Beirut. I strongly doubt that those extremists who are of the Shia faction of Islam harbor no thoughts of wanting to bring death and destruction to America. We would be foolish to think they don’t.
I visited Iran in 1970 and at that time you did not see the headgear women are now required to wear. I too have friends from Iran and they related to me that in the early days of the revolution the religious police tooled around Tehran looking to enforce edicts. men had to wear shirts untucked, women got the hijab thumb tacked to their heads among many other things I could relate. I hold extremists of any religion (or dogma subset) as folks to be opposed. Extreme Shia is no better than extreme Sunni.
I don’t understand the basis for the headline “Extremists Harm Islam More Than Cartoons” and this sentence “The leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah group says Islamic extremists have insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad more than those who published satirical cartoons mocking the religion.”
The article says that “Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah did not directly mention the Paris attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, but he said Islamic extremists who behead and slaughter people — a reference to the IS group’s rampages in Iraq and Syria — have done more harm to Islam than anyone else in history.”
So, is the assertion that he said that extremists harm Islam more than cartoons and cartoonists based on an implication that since he said ISIS has harmed Islam “more than anyone else in history” that necessarily means that they harm Islam more than cartoonists? Unless there is more to his statement than that, I’d say that the headline and assertion about cartoonists are giving him far too much credit – it seems he said nothing at all about Charlie Hebdo, whether “directly” or otherwise.
Sloppy.
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what part of “the U.S.” don’t you understand? also, try to keep things in the current millennium, if that’s possible. hezbollah != al qaeda.