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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 20, 2008 - 08:28pm PT
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Don't be so accurate Jody. After all theology is as relative as every thing else. Don't even know (and it wouldn't matter)which references belong to the OT or NT
It's news if those that believe in a malicious theocracy are winning,
And propaganda if those that believe in the rights of the individual are ascendent.
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tooth
Mountain climber
B.C.
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Jun 20, 2008 - 08:29pm PT
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Exodus is the only OT verse there
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 20, 2008 - 08:37pm PT
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Matt. 26:52 "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 20, 2008 - 08:45pm PT
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smarter people than you disagree...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 20, 2008 - 08:47pm PT
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Even the MSM has to admit to reality,
Posted: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 7:43 AM
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
Dora, in Saddam’s time, had it all – a power station and oil refinery provided jobs and its large bungalows hidden in date palm groves drew rich, powerful Sunnis and their families to this southern suburb of Baghdad.
But Dora fell on hard times at the start of the war in 2003.
When I visited Dora about 18 months ago, it was with the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, before the surge of U.S. and Iraqi forces into Baghdad began. The once bustling "gateway to the South" was a ghost town. It smelled of cordite, an explosive powder.
Sunni residents were in hiding; Dora’s Shiites were dead or had fled to other provinces; its many Christians – doctors, architects and other professionals – had also fled to escape the sectarian killing. The insurgent town had become an al-Qaida stronghold. But that wasn’t the only threat: Shiite death squads, masquerading as National Police, had murdered and maimed so many Sunnis that the 1st Cavalry had to force the police out of their precinct and cordon off the area.
It was a very different Dora that I saw this past week, once again embedded with U.S. forces – this time with the 4th Infantry Division. Life had returned. Dora’s famous Friday open market was bubbling with people, produce and color. No one looked afraid.
Working together
U.S. troops, who now live in an outpost right in the middle of town, were not the only force patrolling the streets. So were the infamous, primarily Shiite, National Police, as well as the so-called "Sons of Iraq" – local volunteers, all Sunni, who were mostly former insurgents. It was something quite remarkable I was seeing for the first time: U.S., Shiite and Sunni armed forces cooperating for the general good.
Sunni residents, who wouldn’t have dared to be seen talking to members of the National Police a year ago, were now complaining to them about rising food and fuel prices in the market or asking for advice.
"Before we all suffered from a triple threat – al-Qaida, the militias, and sectarian kidnappings," said Alladin Hussein, a former major in Saddam’s Army, who I met in the market. "Now we are living in stability and security. It’s like a precious gem, something very fragile that you have to take care of."
Lt. Justin Chalvko could be called "Mr. Dora" as far as Iraqis here are concerned. He is the face of the U.S. presence in the area – he lives in the local U.S. Army outpost and leads daily patrols through the market with his platoon. He knows many residents by their first names, and jokes with them in his broken Arabic.
Chalvko said the changes in Dora since his arrival six months ago are "like night and day." But he’s no fool.
"Even though it’s good now," he warned, "it’s only been good for four or five months. People are starting to move back into the area, but it’s like everyone’s walking on eggshells still. They want to make sure that it’s for real, it’s not just something temporary."
Sure, the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 12-foot high, 10-ton blast walls that now surround – and isolate – Dora help keep al-Qaida at bay. But local Dorans don’t seem to care. In fact, most Iraqis I asked about the blast walls said that they actually felt freer these days with the concrete barriers and joint patrols to protect them.
Chalvko walked us past Dora’s reopened parks and replanted gardens, past its new library, its primary care clinic, and high school.
Bank open for biz
He explained that, at first, people just wanted security. Now they want services. He then led us to one service that had just opened last week – the Dora branch of the Rafidain Bank. A bank! I hadn’t been inside a functioning Iraqi bank in years. The last Rafidain Bank branch I was this close to was burning out of control on Baghdad’s Haifa Street during those chaotic days just after the fall of Saddam.
We went inside. There were a dozen or more customers, one in a wheelchair, counting small piles of Iraqi dinars they had just withdrawn or were about to deposit. Tellers, mostly women in head scarves, were busy filling out bank slips and attaching paper clips to deposits. The manager, all the while, was pacing back and forth, smiling nervously, from his office to the tellers and back. I guess that being a bank manager in Dora is not the safest of jobs, no matter how many troops or blast walls surrounded you.
But, it struck me that the very presence of a bank was a symbol of change. Dorans could now avoid traveling through interminable checkpoints, across Baghdad, risking their lives to deposit or withdraw money for loans on houses or cars or new businesses. They could do all their business right here, in their own neighborhood.
"Instead of looking to the Americans to help them out," said Chalvko, "they can come here. It’s a sign that things are going in the right direction."
How many Doras are there?
Covering the war in Iraq is often about analyzing the trend lines. We’re all looking for the elusive "turning point" – that gauge that ultimately allows us to measure victory or defeat.
One of my Nightly News editors in New York, Robert Dembo, summed it up nicely, "I guess the real question now is: How many Doras are out there?" And I’ve got my own new question: "I wonder just how long Rafidain Bank will stay open?"
We shall see.
Jim Maceda is an NBC News Correspondent based in London. He has reported on the war in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003 and is currently on assignment in Baghdad.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 20, 2008 - 08:50pm PT
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Seems ironic to me that the same folks advocating a violent interpretation of Christianity are the same ones criticizing Islam, focusing on those with violent interpretations of Islam.
I'd like to see all the folks who think God wants his peeps to kill for the cause to find a nice desert island to fight it out on, with knives or hand to hand.
Then the rest of us could get started with the Peace and Love that it's going to take to really save the world.
The teachings of Jesus, who lived in territory occupied by foreigners and whose religion had become corrupted by fundamentalist literalists as well, speak for themselves. He didn't have a violent suggestion against any of them, and taught turning the other cheek and loving your enemies.
I'd go to the source for what Jesus was about, what he said.
You should have some shame twisting your own religion when it's plain Jesus called on you to have faith that Love should prevail
Peace
Karl
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 20, 2008 - 09:20pm PT
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you're right jody, sorry about that (there's just so much material here//)
"Funny how liberals defend a people that treat their women like crap. Also pretty funny how they defend people who want to kill them."
everyone who thinks the punishment for treating women like crap ought to be the slaughter of civilians, please raise your hands...
everyone who believes the iraqis would be trying to kill americans if we were not occupying their country, please raise your hands...
everyone who believes that only the iraqis that "want to kill [us]" are being killed, please raise your hands...
everyone who believes we are in iraq to protect the women, please raise your hands...
and finally, everyone who thinks we are in iraq because they attacked us/ they want to kill us/ we are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here, please raise your hands
(judy/TGT et al, what are you using for your 5th hand?)
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 20, 2008 - 10:41pm PT
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Matt wrote
"Matt. 26:52 "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."
Don't you think quoting Matt. is bad taste?
Jody will believe what he wants to believe, but there isn't squat in the gospels themselves to justify a violent Christianity or violent Jesus, and LOTS to refute it.
Peace
karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 21, 2008 - 03:30pm PT
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Fatty
Politics have managed to corrupt religion in various ways throughout history. Jesus complained that Judaism at the time was corrupt. The Muslim and Christian campaigns of killing were corruption as well.
That's one reason why I tend to respect the Mystical traditions at the periphery of the major faiths, The Sufis, Kabbalists, and Christian Mystics. None of them has played party to conquest and violence. The more a person actually communes with the Spirit, the less they are likely to kill and hurt people.
Peace
Karl
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 21, 2008 - 03:44pm PT
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Matt are a you subscribing Christian, do have faith?
Karl?
It just seems funny to me that people who seem (I could be wrong) to criticize biblical absolutism are directly taking the word of Jesus literally, as if they are direct quotes, and they could be.
Do you also believe that God literally created the world in such a short time? I, for one, do not.
The Bible is a guidebook for mankind (and women too). It's full of story too, but I think the intention was to pass down values that mankind could learn from, to establish a common 'good' society.
Sometimes they get perverted, the values. It is my belief that God suggested that homosexuality was a bad thing for society in general. I don't think he meant to 'kill the gays', he just didn't want it to be promoted as 'normal'. If everybody did it, civilization would rot and die.
He wanted men and women to create families and share love, and share love with generations of familiy.
I've always been an old testament kinda guy, but Jesus was a good man. He was born from God to show us the things that God was pissed off about. God wanted to come down himself and open some whoop-ass, but because he's good, he sent his son, Jesus. Jesus, at the time, showed us corruption and taught peace.
That's not to say that God doesn't get pissed off, Jesus showed a peaceful solution to certain problems, God isn't so nice sometimes.
When confronted with evil and peple willing to take God's innocent children, you are entiltled to stand up for your family and fight. God's beautiful world doesn't need to be overrun by evil, it takes good mean to protect it.
I don't think God or Jesus are ashamed of that. Sometimes we do dissapoint the Almighty, and we hear from him, but sometimes we're expected to stand up to evil when it appears and defeat it before it overtakes us.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jun 21, 2008 - 03:49pm PT
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Equating the teachings of Jesus to the politics of the Papacy is a complete foolishness. Easy to understand DaftRat's need to do it in light of his determined need to promote Fat's Clash.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 21, 2008 - 03:54pm PT
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Bluering wrote
"When confronted with evil and peple willing to take God's innocent children, you are entiltled to stand up for your family and fight. God's beautiful world doesn't need to be overrun by evil, it takes good mean to protect it. "
I'm sure that's what the Iraqi insurgents are telling themselves before they go out and try to kick the Americans out of the hood
Peace
karl
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 21, 2008 - 03:56pm PT
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That may be, Karl, but since we come bringing peace in the long term, they will soon realize that and chill.
I understand their anger, but they're starting to understand we just want peace and stability there, and a good life for the people.
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midarockjock
climber
USA
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Jun 21, 2008 - 04:57pm PT
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A interview with god.
< Link >
The Red White and Blue image in the blog is not free. A
service scan shows stack host.name is still the same
ip as the copyrighted site.
< Link American Woman. > The guess who is not my favorite band.
To Lorne(1980) and Larry in Idaho(1979):
Lorne your unlikely jock friend from high school. Same dragon from(1978).
< Link >
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 21, 2008 - 04:59pm PT
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Bluering, we've been there for MANY YEARS now, and apologists for the war have been making nearly the exact statement you just wrote in every single one of those years.
It ain't happening. How many years would you live under occupation before you figured it was all good?
peace
karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 21, 2008 - 06:19pm PT
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Hi Skipt
Like I said before, the reduction in violence is mainly due to the advanced state of ethnic cleansing already accomplished and the fact that 2-3 million people have left their homes, no longer available to be killed.
Folks are still dying including us. Wait until Bush bombs Iran and you'll see a whole new wave of death in Iraq too.
I'm just pointing out that your and Bluering's statements, that things are improving and we're nearly turning the corner are BS statements that have been make over and over and disproved over and over. The place is still unsafe as hell.
Peace
Karl
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jun 21, 2008 - 06:58pm PT
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"You really don't mind telling any type of falsehood in order to make a point. What other things are you lying about?"
Hey Skip, It is not lying, it is an opinion. Just as it is your opinion that war can resolve issues that create terrorist groups. Remember, it is a war on terrorism, yet the experts say we are creating more terrorists with our methods.
I still think the war in Iraq is a big mistake even if we manage to put in place a democratic government. Middle Easterners have too long a history of using violence to settle issues and they have a long history of being willing to bide their time to gain revenge. In relation to their history, this lull means almost nothing.
If you kill all the "trained" bad guys, but create a whole new pool of angry people, then you just continue the cycle.
Are you seriously prepared to risk troops for another 20 to 100 years as the experts say we will have too, if we stay? Or do you get your opinions from McCain who says we can be mostly out in less then 5 years? Oops, he also said 100, 200 years.
Iraq is much different then either Japan or Germany. Yes we attacked those countries, but not before they attacked us first. No matter what you say about Iraq, they did not attack us first as a country and therefore there will be a lot of indignant people there who will eventually want revenge for the death of their daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grand parents and on and on. They have a long history of seaking revenge, and it is these injured people that the Bin Ladens of the world will draw from as their next recruits, thus extending a vicious cycle of terrorism around the world.
But hey, that is just my opinion.
Am I lying?
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jstan
climber
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Jun 21, 2008 - 06:59pm PT
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Skip:
All the reports I have seen tell us the Sunni and Shia, in many cases were living side by side, in neighboring buildings and apartments at the time of our invasion. Go to the newspapers of that day and you will see this described daily. For more than two years the populations, have been moving into physically separate areas. Both sides were being gunned down as they walked down the hall to get to their apartments. I think you can imagine how life under those conditions would have been. Imagine you lived, side by side, with someone who did not trust you and felt they had to strike first if their family was to survive.
So our action has been such as to destroy irreversibly the attempt long alienated populations were making to discover how to share a nation, and to share a life. We have destroyed the only effective resolution available to these beleagured people.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jun 21, 2008 - 07:25pm PT
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Now who is being disingenuous? Do you state that things are your opinion every time you make an opinion?
We are winning the war in Iraq because statistics show their is less violence. Is this fact or opinion?
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