it's a fucking toy, morons

We need to "dialogue" with these people.

You go first.

Update (12/10): Desperately seeking asylum.

Update (12/18): Blogger action!

Comments

[art]

this is hardly the place.

[hjmaiere]

From the New York Times: "Despite the display of outrage, witnesses said that many of the protesters were government employees ordered to demonstrate, and that aside from a large gathering outside the presidential palace, most of Khartoum was quiet."

[Ron]

Tolerance Teddy

[NM]

I don't doubt that the Sudanese government was involved in creating the rally; these are the same thugs who have murdered over 200,000 people in the Darfur region after all. But this time excuses must not be made for this kind of fascistic behavior. I don't want to hear about 'root causes': there is no reason to call for a woman's death just because she allowed school children to name a teddy bear Muhammad. That's an evil thing to do.

[ljp]

I'll bet all the hate-radio pundits are gonna scream about this like monkeys. In fact they probably already have...

Mind you, I'm no supporter of Islam, but I just hate this "Democrats support Osama" BS...

[bartleby]

I suppose all the Sudanese with internet access need to find out about the evils of anti-intellectualism from Americans.

What can I say? On the Syrian border, where my brother was stationed as battalion commander of 1/7 Marines during his (I fervently pray!) last tour of duty in Iraq, one of the locals' children was killed in a raid on some bomb/IED-making warehouses. While tendering official apologies and discussing reparations for his losses, my brother inquired after the safety of the father's remaining children. The reply went something like this: "Allah will give me other children, but praise Him that my house was spared!"
Charming people.
Philoctetes

[krebstar01]

I have a colleague from Iraq... (him and hist family long since moved away). We occasionally talk about the hellhole that is his former home country, and very often what he says to me is that there are a lot of people, outside major cities who have a very stunted, almost niave vision the world. They believe most anything hte Mullah's tell them (America is the devil, that sort of crap... of course this is backed up slightly by military consultants playing target practice with the natives, ala Blackwater....)

These guys are like Fred Phelps acolytes or Dominionists (scary well-armed Born-agains), but rather their Islamic counterparts. I guess the point I want to make is on one hand, it's ridiculous to take up the mantel of moral relativism... but on the other hand, we members of the western world (especially the US and A) need to remember that we don't hold the patent on idiocy. Sure we've got enough bible thumping rhubarbs to deal with, but with 20 percent of the world population practicing Islam, It just means Islamic idiots currently outnumber Christian idiots. OHH and Islamic idiots are in the news... Christian idiots aren't: yet.

[hjmaiere]

You won't hear about a woman being flogged in Saudi Arabia for adultery, or about people being extradited to Egypt to be tortured because our court system is too inconvenient. If you hear about Israeli forces shelling a tourist beach in Gaza, the pundits on Fox claim the whole thing is a hoax. Extremists on both sides draw their strength from extreme reactions to extreme actions. This is a manufactured issue, planted at a specific time to have a specific effect. War with Iran is coming.

[pizzzaq]

i agree with hjmaiere.

it's the sudanese government we're talking about, not muslims at large. there's a good chance, as i've heard, that this is a cynical ploy on their part to divert attention away from darfur. us media eats up shit like this.

and yeah...i'm a little surprised by irwin. a dialogue with the sudanese government or any other dictatorship run by ideologues, maybe useless, but a dialogue among ordinary people of different faiths, call me a hippy, but it doesn't sound like such a horrible thing to these ears.

[nm]

You don't 'dialogue' with religious fascists if you call yourself a leftist or left-liberal. You don't 'dialogue' with people who have a murderous and totalitarian ideology either. If you want to be a friend to normal Muslims in the Arab world and beyond, then you should vocally oppose the religious fanatics who make their lives difficult. Besides, how can you have a dialogue with people who jail (or demand the death of) this unfortunate teacher who allowed students to name a teddy bear after Islam's greatest Prophet?

[Jason]

I'm with Irwin.
We need to bomb some sense into their rag-wrapped heads.

[Maimonedes]

Try as I might, I just can't think of a single instance of Christianity or Judaism being used a rationale for murder.

Maimonedes, please do a tiny bit of research...I have trouble trying be concise when listing the times Christianity has been used to rationale murder!
The Inquisition (we're talking MILLIONS of people)
The Salem Witch Trials
The Conquest of the "New World"
The Crusades

To be a bit more modern...bombing abortion clinics and assassinating doctors that perform abortions.

I swear, I'm not trying to bash Christianity here, just pointing out that evil men (and women) will use whatever they need (including religion) to justify their evil actions. No religion (in theory) is immune to this abuse.

[Maimonedes]

Good point about The Salem Witch Trials, but I don't think anybody actually died during the Inquisition or The Crusades. A lot of people got violently ill and a bad skin rash broke out around the 3rd Crusade, but nobody of consequence actually died.

[JMet]

Um, Maimonedes? The Crusades should have just been called 'The Bloodbath'. The Inquisition? My people. The Jews. They tortured and kill quite a few if they didn't convert to Christianity. They also killed many practicing Christians who just happened to be enemies of the Church. Jeez, Haven't you ever seen "History of the World: Part 1"?

[bartleby]

Would that be *the* M. Maimonides of Moorish Spain?

[Irwin]

Hoboken, actually.

[DanO]

actually, a few thousand people were killed during the inquisiton over the course of decades, not anywhere near "millions" (or 'MILLIONS!' as was hysterically misstated). not a shining moment for the catholic church, but not anywhere near the deeds done in the name of atheists in this century(Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot).

[ljp]

I'm sure, DanO, you'd probably dismiss Pinochet's horrible crimes the same way. SURRRRRE, he wasn't quite as bad as Stalin, but wasn't he bad enough?

[Sport]

Just look here ... it describes how Teddy Roosevelt created the template or something for Bush's imperialism or whatever. The very same "Teddy" after whom they originally named the plush bear!!! Now an English (our "allies") woman named Gibbons (hmmm... a group of monkeys?) attempts to debase the Prophet by this very device! Man, we suck.

[bartleby]

Perhaps folks recall the time Clinton bombed the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan claiming it was a chemical weapons facility. The intelligence was later shown to be wrong but the only pharmaceutical plant of its kind in Sudan was rendered inoperable in an unprincipled attempt to draw attention away from the fact he was fucking a much younger intern. There is no question that at least some folks lost their lives in the resulting shortages of pharmaceuticals. At least our current president could plausibly claim ignorance if he had done such things.