Freedom of Speech

@Raymann you'll know who is on the straight and even way and who is utterly lost when you meet your just dues.

Greetings and peace be with you Raymann;

I'm in no position to determine who is right and who is wrong and neither are you.

Maybe so, but the following is not my opinion....

15 Sep 2004 - The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal.

In the spirit of praying for justice for all people,
Eric

format_quote Originally Posted by Junon

This thread isn't even about freedom of speech, its about Raymann getting on his soap box and preaching, then *shock* *horror* is astonished when he doesn't get his way.

oh the irony, I lol'd

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format_quote Originally Posted by Raymann

Now you've done it. Just to win a dispute, you now claim that your morals don't come from your prophet (pbuh), nice.

Actually, he (al khorasani) is correct. In Islam, we believe in first principles (fitra) and moral constructs are a part of our natural disposition to know essential higher truths. However, the atheist using science cannot account for the metaphysical and thus, you as an atheist cannot philosophically justify morality coming from your scientifically atheist position. I'm not claiming that you don't have morality, mind. I'm claiming that you cannot justify these using science as an atheist.

We, Muslims, don't need science to know that morality is axiomatic. A part of our natural disposition, and yours, given to us all by God.

{Batman voice} "Do ye plead?"

Greetings and peace be with you Raymann;

I'm in no position to determine who is right and who is wrong and neither are you.

If the invasion of Iraq was right, then Iraq would be a better place now, and the world would also benefit. The opposite seems true, Iraq has been destabilised and the Middle East is a mess. I am not sure why anyone would continue to say the invasion of Iraq was a beneficial, or a just war.

In the spirit of praying for justice for all people;

Eric

Firstly -the statue was an idol that should have been pulled down for Allah's sake anyway.

Secondly -it was pulled down for Godless propaganda aims only to have another puppet idol statue put in its place -therefore it was an ill intentioned and unaccepted act.

It is actually telling how the rothschild puppet American criminals used unwitting bitter shiahs (who they'd paid, armed, and prodded saddam to fight) for the staged propaganda event, but that even then -those same people disdained the propaganda aims of those who attempted to boast their short-lived victory.

----



The event was widely publicized, but allegations that it had been staged were soon published. One picture from the event, published in the London Evening Standard, was Photoshopped to suggest a larger crowd.[4] A report by the Los Angeles Times stated it was an unnamed Marine colonel, not Iraqi civilians who had decided to topple the statue; and that a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team then used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist and made it all appear spontaneous and Iraqi-inspired.[5] According to Tim Brown at Globalsecurity.org: "It was not completely stage-managed from Washington, DC but it was not exactly a spontaneous Iraqi operation."[6]

Before the statue was toppled, Marine Corporal Edward Chin of 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division (attached to 3rd Battalion 4th Marines) climbed the ladder and placed a U.S. flag over the statue's face.[1] According to the book "Shooter", by Coughlin, Kuhlman, and Davis, other Marines of the 3/4 realized the PR disaster unfolding as the formerly cheering crowd became silent, with one woman shouting at the marines to remove the flag. Kuhlman had appropriated an Iraqi flag as a war trophy during a raid earlier in the war, and quickly unfurled it and headed for the statue. The crowd grabbed this flag and then placed it over the statue.[


The Marines present at the time, 3rd Battalion 4th Marines as well as 1st Tank Battalion, maintain that the scene was not staged other than the assistance they provided.[7]

Robert Fisk described the event as "the most staged photo opportunity since Iwo Jima."


The Toppling: How the Media Created the Iconic Fall of Saddam's Statue


U.S. Provided the Sledgehammer and Iraqi Flag A thirty-five-year-old gunnery sergeant named Leon Lambert, who commanded an M-88 military tow truck, gave the Iraqis the iconic sledgehammer used to knock down the statue. "If a sledgehammer and rope fell off the 88, would you mind?" Lambert asked his superior. As for the flag, it's "One of the Firdos myths" that Iraqis brought an Iraqi flag to put over the statue. Another myth is that it was brought by a U.S. "psyops team." In fact it belonged to Marine lieutenant Casey Kuhlman, who happened to be in the area and had decided that an Iraqi flag should replace the U.S. flag that had briefly covered the face on Saddam's statue.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...ppling/342802/


(When using clear thought to assess the situation, it becomes obvious that nobody in their right mind expected that hammer to topple that base whilst the photographers and soldiers crowded around it, and even if it could have been done whilst the traffic awaited the removal of the road block, and the reporters and soldiers the statue, could they expect it to fall without killing a whole load of them? It isn't a tree which slowly begins to lean as the weight very slowly pulls it in opposite direction to the cut).


Fake Toppling of Saddam's Statue in 2003


(One flag photo to show americans, another to show the iraqis and people in the wider region: )

"Deadly Deception, Pretexts for War," The Wisdom Fund, July 30, 2001

["The US flag that was put on the face of Saddam yesterday - it was replaced by an Iraqi flag when the people shouted for that - was the flag that was flying over the Pentagon on September 11."--Paul Wood, "9/11 Pentagon Flag Used To Cover Saddam's Face In Baghdad," BBC (Baghdad), April 10, 2003]

["Rather than a spontaneous mass demonstration, the photo clearly shows that only a couple hundred Iraqis participated in the largely empty and heavily guarded Fardus Square. American tanks and troops surrounded the square and one armored vehicle "helped" the Iraqis pull down the statue."--Ivan Eland, "Just Another Staged Baghdad Rally?," Independent Institute, April 12, 2003]

["The scene was marred by the presence of American tanks and soldiers who, before reaching that square to help a few Iraqis topple down the statue, had slaughtered many civilians and left a trace of blood and destruction.

"Alas, tyranny is now replaced with colonialism. Let us not be intoxicated by that image and let it erase the fact that this "liberating" power itself was complicit in propping and supporting Saddam throughout the 1980's when he waged his war against Iran and killed one million Iraqis. All those Iraqis were not worthy of liberation back then, because they were serving another function: fodder for weapons and for containing Khomeini's Iran. I remember seeing Rumsfeld shake hands with our oppressor on Iraqi TV back in the early 1980's and both Bush I and Reagan supplied him with weapons and military intelligence while he was gassing Iraqi Kurds. No wonder it was difficult to topple him without his original sponsors who came uninvited and with ulterior motives that have become painfully obvious by now.


"Yes there were Iraqis cheering and dancing, but that should not be (mis)interpreted as rolling out the red carpet for American tanks. The crowd at Al-Firdaws square was a few hundred and no more. Baghdad is a city of 4.5 million." --Sinan Antoon, "(De)liberation: The paradise promised in Iraq has been lost," Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt), April 13, 2003]

"The Toppling Of Saddam Statue: An Eyewitness Report," SBS TV (Australia), April 17, 2003

["There was the CIA's man, an Iraqi fixer of the American stooge Ahmad Chalabi, orchestrating that joyous media moment of 'liberation', attended by 'hundreds' - or was it 'dozens'? - of cheering people, with three American tanks neatly guarding the entrances to the media stage. 'Thanks, guys,' said a marine to the BBC's Middle East correspondent in appreciation of the BBC's 'coverage."--John Pilger, "Journalism is rotting away," pilger.carlton.com, April 25, 2003]

[A Reuters long-shot photo of Firdos Square showed that it was nearly empty, ringed by U.S. tanks and marines who had moved in to seal off the square before admitting the Iraqis. A BBC photo sequence of the statue's toppling also showed a sparse crowd of approximately 200 people--much smaller than the demonstrations only nine days later, when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad calling for U.S.-led forces to leave the city.--Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, "How To Sell a War: The Rendon Group deploys 'perception management' in the war on Iraq," InTheseTimes, August 4, 2003]

David Zucchino, "Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue," Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2004


http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0411-Statue.html




Media Vastly Exaggerated Attendance Though we're all familiar with the photos of a crowded-seeming square, ProPublica reproduces photos showing that the square was actually mostly empty, but that media portrayals used tight-focus shots of a small cluster of people to suggest it was packed. Maass adds, "very few Iraqis were there. If you were at the square, or if you watch the footage, you can see, on the rare occasions long shots were used, that the square was mostly empty. You can also see, from photographs as well as video, that much of the crowd was made up of journalists and marines." Of even the small number of Iraqis there, Maass says most were subdued, standing with their arms crossed. "Closeups filled the screen with the frenzied core of the small crowd and created an illusion of wall-to-wall enthusiasm throughout Baghdad. It was an illusion that reflected only the media’s yearning for exciting visuals." But that just isn't accurate.


BBC Breaking News - [u]LIVE[/b] From Green Square, Tripoli:



Media Ignored More Important News for 'Upbeat' Story Maass says that, in the rush to cover the state-toppling, the media ignored or avoided far grimmer--and more important--stories: "On that day, Baghdad was violent and chaotic. The city was already being looted by swarms of people using trucks, taxis, horses, and wheelbarrows to cart away whatever they could from government buildings and banks, museums, and even hospitals. There continued to be armed opposition to the American advance." But, "The networks almost never broke away from Firdos Square"
News Editors Pushed Story Reporters Said Was Bogus "A visual echo chamber developed: rather than encouraging reporters to find the news, editors urged them to report what was on TV," Maass writes. He chronicles several examples of editors ordering journalists to cover the story, which reporters warned wasn't real news. One photojournalist told his editor that "few Iraqis were involved and the ones who were seemed to be doing so for the benefit of the legions of photographers; it was a show. The editor told him to get off the phone and start taking pictures."
Study Finds that Media Failure at Firdos Worsened War Oversight Maass cites the study:
Among the handful of studies of Firdos Square, the most incisive was George Washington University’s, led by Sean Aday, an associate professor of media and public affairs. It concluded that the coverage had “profound implications for both international policy and the domestic political landscape in America.” According to the study, the saturation coverage of Firdos Square fuelled the perception that the war had been won, and diverted attention from Iraq at precisely the moment that more attention was needed, not less. "Whereas battle stories imply a war is going on, statues falling--especially when placed in the context of truly climactic images from recent history--imply the war is over," the study noted.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...ppling/342802/

format_quote Originally Posted by Al Khorasani

Originally Posted by Raymann
Now you've done it. Just to win a dispute, you now claim that your morals don't come from your prophet (pbuh), nice.

Because they don't, they come from Allah Azza Wa Jal. Just because his morals were perfectly in line with Islamic rulings doesn't mean ours come from him, our religion is from God, not any human being.

Islam teaches that Prophet Muhammad is the best example of proper ethical and moral behavior for mankind. Indeed, Muhammad is the model against whom our conduct is to be measured. In other words, if Muhammad did it, so should we.

You're getting deeper in the hole.

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format_quote Originally Posted by Abz2000

The event was widely publicized, but allegations that it had been staged were soon published.

By whom ?
Any other cheap and unfounded conspiracy theory material you want to share with us ???

The links are in the articles.

Hasbara trolls are such annoying pr!cks, they can carry on chatting sh!t and i'll respond when there's a necessity -and won't when there's no need to be led by their empty nasal provocations. But by all means, they can carry on whinging their hasbara lines until they reach the end of their leash so we get a decent map of how predictably pathetic Israel's very "best" trolls are.

http://bookenzine.net/1028689/freedom-of-expression-in-islam.pdf <brilliant book. I have the actual book and not pdf. Once I finish Lings, I'll be giving this another shot.

format_quote Originally Posted by Bushwackk

brilliant book. I have the actual book and not pdf.

I also have the actual book. It didn't impress me at all. The author clearly has good knowledge of Islam but he fails to address the real issues. Many Muslims seem too bogged down in details to understand the big picture.

format_quote Originally Posted by fschmidt

I also have the actual book. It didn't impress me at all. The author clearly has good knowledge of Islam but he fails to address the real issues. Many Muslims seem too bogged down in details to understand the big picture.

You just made a blanket statement without providing even a shred of evidence to support your claim... I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not the first time.

format_quote Originally Posted by Bushwackk

You just made a blanket statement without providing even a shred of evidence to support your claim... I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not the first time.

I gave my impression. You also called the book "brilliant book" without a shred of evidence. How is that any different?

format_quote Originally Posted by Raymann

Brother Eric H, please move on, the war is over, the weapons were found in 2014, so it's all good.
The Iraqis seemed very happy right after the invasion.
Tears rolled down my eyes when I saw them tearing Saddam Hussein's statue down on live tv.
The joy of the Iraqi people screaming Allahu Akbar in the main plaza in Baghdad will remain in my memory forever.
The brave americans and the allies helped the Iraqis rebuild the country while risking their lives to keep the country safe.
But time showed us that at the end they're going to do what they want to do.
They were free now, FREE.
They could have helped the elected new leader but instead they chose to fight it, to terrorize, to kill innocent people, etc.
They were free to do whatever they decided to do and they chose war.
Should I feel guilty, why?
Wake up is not a coincidence.
It also happened in Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia and of course Afghanistan.
Should I feel guilty? not for a second.

You actually believe this don't you? Lolz so much for atheists having great minds

@Bushwackk @fschmidt that was some neat banter

https://myislam.dk/books/book.php?la...descr=1&cont=1

Here's a critical summary of the book by Sherman A Jackson:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~vika/...sonreview.html

Book Review: Freedom of Expression in Islam ...

format_quote Originally Posted by Abz2000

Here's a critical summary of the book by Sherman A Jackson:

This review seems reasonable from an Islamic perspective, but I will try to give my non-Islamic review. I read some of the book some time ago and I don't remember it well since it simply wasn't very memorable. What I remember clearly is my frustration with his refusal to confront the real issues. He talked a lot about how free speech could allow positive speech in various ways. But that isn't the point of free speech. The real question is whether one allows obvious negative speech.

Should people be allowed to advocate stealing or murder or Satan worship? Just think of an idea that you find intolerable and then ask yourself whether people should be free to advocate that idea. That is the real test of free speech. My answer is absolutely yes, people should be free to advocate horrible ideas. I can give my reasons if anyone is interested, but my point here is that this book never confronts this issue, so the whole book is pointless in my opinion.