i'll reply in two parts. the first one is when he noded his head with respect as he refused to take food because he's fasting. well. this is the islamic hypocrisy, he's reading a book full of hate to christians and jews and full of hate speech and need to be ready to attack the infidels and how allah is so annoyed by the non muslims all around the world! yet! he refuses the offer to food or drink in a very nice way. if this had happened not in a muslim country but a neighborhood where muslims live! he would have gone crazy as the food was offered to him in a time when fucking ramadan was suppose to be respected!

the second part is about the sunset. when the pedophile muhammed and the swine in the sky seem to have missed that at the north pole the sun never sets! leaving people clueless about what to do in such situations coz islam and quran said earth is flat like all other religions.

That the United States is to blame for militant or extremist Islam is a simplistic, yet oft heard trope, and is rejected by well-known ex-Muslims like Ayan Hirsi Ali and Faisal Saeed Al Mutar. Religious fervor and fundamentalist repression exists with or without the presence of the bogeyman, USA. The cure here is the expansion of societal secularization combined with improvements in educational and income equity. In other words, the Scandinavian model versus the Saudi Arabian one.

@p-nullifidian

Your reply is the simplistic one that ignores history.

1. It ignores that the US has continually destroyed reformist secular governments in the Muslim world.

   • Iran, 1953.
   • Afghanistan, 1980s.
   • Iraq, Syria, Libya, 2003 - Present

2. It ignores that the US is the one supporting the Saudi Arabian model that you abhor.

3. It ignores that the US and Saudi Arabia support the Islamic fanatics wherever they can against the reformists, e.g. Yemen today.

By ignoring this, you are demonstrating your love of White Privilege which benefits from such imperialism.

As part of your disdainful attitude of White Superiority, you blame the societies that are the victims of your own White Imperialism.

@Krish55, The comment by @p-nullifidian is accurate and reasonable. Your points are accurate, but not proof that they have been ignored.

Muslims are betrayed, oppressed and enslaved by their cruel, imperialist ideology. They need to be helped and encouraged to apostatize, freeing themselves and Humanity from Islam domination. This has nothing at all to do with skin colour.

@Krish55 When one leaps to such conclusions, as you have done here, one is guilty of prejudging. I am well aware of the failures of US foreign policy, do not support our cozy relationship with the Kingdom, and routinely check my privilege. But these issues are red herrings (particularly the ad hominem of white superiority) as they have nothing to do with the central topic in this post, nor my reply to your attempt to link this topic to US foreign policy. Namely, that leaving one's religious faith--in this case, Islam--is a positive sign to be applauded.

@PBuck0145 @p-nullifidian

Of course leaving Islam is good. But what happens when secular reformists try to do this?

The answer lies in one more example: In 1965, The US Embassy in Indonesia gave the Islamic generals the names of reformists to kill. One million were massacred. End of secularism in Indonesia!

All the examples add up to a pattern. A pattern of the West disrupting progress is the brown-skinned countries when such progress challenges White, Western control. To call this "jumping to conclusions" is simply denialism, akin to Holocaust Denial.

The negative effects go beyond the Islamic world. Latin America is still plagued with the consequences of backward, Christian right-wing dictatorships installed by the US. Hence the emigration from Central America, for example. North Korea is similarly a basket case because of the genocidal US war waged there and continued military intimidation. There is pattern of destructiveness arising from White Imperialism all across the world.

And your pattern of denying the effects of such imperialism that benefits the white countries while blaming the societies that are the victims of your White Privilege points to your racism.

@Krish55 Your only tool appears to be hated of the U.S. and Western culture.

@PBuck0145

I never said anything about Western culture. I speak four European languages and can sing and play their music and dance their traditional dances. I also play the banjo and Appalachian music. So the problem is not whiteness but White Superiority. I know many white anti-imperialists who agree.

Apparently for you and Nully however, White Superiority is an essential part of your whiteness. So you view an attack on Western Imperialism as an attack on Western culture. And part of your supposed superiority is parading your supposed intellectual and moral superiority over the supposedly ignorant masses in certain brown-skinned countries.

...Parading your superiority while ignoring how the depraved state of the societies you condemn is a direct consequence of your international White Privilege, a.k.a., Western Imperialism.

Holocaust Denial is rightly seen as evidence of anti-Semitism. The denial of the far more destructive White Western Imperialism is similarly evidence of Racism.

@Krish55 your hatred is revealing.

@Mvtt And what did I hate?

This white pushback here is just the equivalent of the white racists who say that BLM hates whites. No, BLM hates White Racism domestically. Similarly, anti-imperialists hate White Imperialism internationally.

If you feel you are being hated, it's because you identify your whiteness with White Superiority. You thus feel that an attack on this superiority is an attack your whiteness.

The fact that you ascribe a criticism of White Superiority to hatred shows your racism.

@p-nullifidian, @Mvtt You have the moral high ground.
Easily refutable assertions do no constitute an effective debate strategy.

@PBuck0145

1. Easily refutable but no refutation offered?
2. Still not offering any examples of what I supposedly hate?
3. But continuing in your pretense of superiority by claiming "moral high ground'???
4. And the pretense of somehow debating better?

And Nully, pointing to how Western imperialism caused the spread of contemporary Islamic fanaticism is not a detour. It is examination of the origin of the problem. That origin has to be understood in order to combat the problem.

Tens of millions more would be non-believing if your White Western governments hadn't destroyed secular movements in the Muslim world.

@Krish55 How very virtuous of you!

@PBuck0145

Hmmn, you were claiming superior debating skills earlier. Is passive-aggressive sarcasm one such superior tactic?

And your sarcasm is even misplaced. It might be appropriate is I were a white Westerner claiming to stand up for the dark-skinned people your governments oppress.

However, there is nothing virtuous in defending oneself. I myself am a survivor of your white imperialism. There is nothing virtuous in my speaking up about it. It is mere self-defense.

However, I could sarcastically call you "virtuous" for claiming to care about people in Muslim countries while you ignore how your white governments helped turn those lands into Jihadistans

@Krish55 Please know that I am open to debate and a logical representation of points of view. I am willing if you are, to engage in a discussion regarding failed US foreign policy as it pertains to the Muslim world.

@p-nullifidian Thanks! I appreciate that. Simple denial is not a debate though. But let's try again...

First of all, on US policy was not a failure. It was a success but one that came with the unexpected blowback of the rapid growth of Islamic fanaticism. It was the CIA that coined this term blowback to explain negative effects of its policies.

US policy was actually a resounding success in its destruction of reformist, secular, socialist movements that sought control their own resources In the Muslim world.

The US calculated, for example, that strong Arab/Asian socialist governments were more of a threat to US economic control than jihadists who could be manipulated against each other.

Thus, in the countries I named before and in many others, jihadis were armed and trained to murder secular reformists and destroy social progress in those countries.

The resulting Islamist governments obviously made it harder for people to leave Islam. The resulting deaths and destruction made people cling to their religion for solace.

The US did the same thing in Latin America. The blowback is the refugee crisis. But this is merely an irritant since the goal of protecting US corporations was achieved.

The single biggest fundamental cause of backwardness in the world today is US Imperialism. Climate change is just one example. The growth of Islamism and Fascism are others.

@Krish55 “The single biggest fundamental cause of backwardness in the world today is US Imperialism.”

The entire world? One must examine each country’s failures and successes on a case-by-case basis. I agree that many countries in Latin America have been the target of US meddling, but sub-Saharan Africa has, if anything, been ignored. More than double the foreign direct investment (FDI) comes from China and EU nations than from the US (source: Brookings). Cost Rica, which was never invaded by the US, was pleased to have been left alone, but its success is tied to its choice to eliminate its army, educate its populace, engage in land reform and pattern its monetary policies after Switzerland.

Is the US to be blamed for the vast poverty in India, a nation that went nuclear before it had internal plumbing, and relied on the support of the Soviet Union for decades? Speaking of which, the rise of the repressive Taliban regime was spurred by the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (1979-89).

The US has been, and continues to be, a hegemonic actor in a number of regions of the world, but it is not, IMO, the greatest reason for the lack of progress in every nation of the world. Whether at the micro or macro level, the most relevant factor in the elimination of poverty has always been education, particularly of girls / women. In countries where women are educated and given greater opportunity, the birth rate drops and household income rises (see Hans Rosling’s TED Talk on Religion, Babies and Poverty). And as we know, access to education is determined by the priorities of each country.

@p-nullifidian OK, good points. So to address them, expand the claim to Western Imperialism for which the US is the point man but also acts in concert with other imperialist European powers.

Central Africa is a mess because the Western elimination of promising leaders like Patrice Lumumba (murdered with the help of the US and Belgium). Other reformist African leaders like Thomas Sankara have faced similar fates, at the hands of France, for example. These reformers are then replaced with incompetent, debased Western puppets like Mobutu and Idi Amin (originally put in by the British).

You cite education. Of course it is important. It is the leftist reformist governments that make that available and ensure that women have access. But when your Western imperialist leaders eliminate these leaders who want to control their own resources, the replacement puppets do not stress education because it threatens them.

You keep pointing to symptoms of the problem but not at the essential problem that produces those symptoms. That fundamental problem is the inability of the countries of the Global South to control and improve their own destiny due to continued wars and regime change by the Imperialist West.

Let me repeat the fundamental problem: The inability of the countries of the Global South to control and improve their own destiny due to continued wars and regime change by the Imperialist West.

If you are sincerely interested, take a look at this well-documented global history of such interference: "Killing Hope" by William Blum

[amazon.com]

@Krish55 Okay, so at least you now appear willing to “spread the blame.” The US is no longer the sole offender, as Western Imperialism replaces US Imperialism, but for some strange reason you seem intent on making it ‘mine’ in using the term ‘your’ as if I claimed ownership.

I must confess that I find myself unable to continue this discourse. Your insistence on a singular explanation for the ills of the world combined with your hesitance to recognize other mitigating factors serve to undermine reasonable discussions. I find your singleminded unflinching adamant vilification of US foreign policy combined with an uncommon devotion to a particular political point of view, akin to a religious doctrine and as such of questionable logic and sensibility. Agnosticism is philosophically inconsistent with hardcore zealotry.

@p-nullifidian

You again misrepresent what I said.

I said imperialism (and the capitalism behind it) was the fundamental cause of the world's greatest problems. Fundamental!

You obviously know that the word "Fundamental" is different from the word "Singular." Yet you maintain that I am claiming the latter to distort my views.

For example, I obviously view Islamic fanaticism as a problem. However it became the great problem it currently is because it was exploited by Western imperialism to prevent economic reform in the Muslim world that would threaten Western economic interests.

I have provided very specific examples of imperialism helping to create disasters in the Muslim world and in Africa. And what is your response?

Your response is to ignore your own call for rational debate. You failed to respond to the examples that I gave! You failed to either refute the examples or accept their implication. That implication is: The disastrous effect of imperialism on the brown-skinned countries.

Your response is to ignore how I've shown that other apparently independent factors such as education and the status of women actually result from imperialism's negative effect.

Such connections operate in precisely the same way as they do with domestic racism. The various disfunctions associated with the black ghetto derive from the pervasive negative effects of institutional racism. This racism is the fundamental problem that the black ghetto faces. Fundamental, not singular.

So you are responding the way domestic racists act when confronted with the evidence of systemic racism. You respond defensively with broad, non-engaged dismissal.

The historical facts create a pattern that you neither refute nor accept. You continue to practice the equivalent of Holocaust Denial to protect your own sense of White Superiority and maintain your International White Privilege.

And what is that privilege exactly?

First, it's your ability to benefit materially from the exploitation of oil in Muslim countries and minerals, precious metals, etc from Africa. This exploitation gives you the leisure to pontificate about problems in those countries from the privileged comfort of an armchair from afar.

But most importantly it's the privilege to project the claim of White Superiority in intellect and morality. To condemn those whose debased conditions enable your own material privilege and ability to pontificate.

Little wonder that you engage in Imperialism Denial. Such denial gives you the continued illusion of superiority.

thank you a lot!

if you want to download any video from youtube, add pp to the URL as follows: lets say this is the link:
www.youtube.com,....
add pp after tube so it becomes www.youtubepp.com .....etc
press enter and a page will load and give you options to download the video.

@Basem ha, who knew?

I don't know that she's 'standing up to' them so much, but just talking about it is probably frowned upon greatly by the more stringent members.

@Captain_Feelgood Without seeing the video it is difficult to decide but Islam does not like apostates. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has had a fatwa sentencing her to death for apostasy which i believe is still in force.

@Moravian Oh, I know... I'm just saying I think this lady is just a teacher talking about it... Not so much pushing for others to leave.. (like Ayaan..)