Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.
—Ann Coulter, “Future Widows of America”
In other words, she thinks all Muslims may be terrorists, and she’s never heard of a terrorist who isn’t a Muslim. Why do people listen to this woman?
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60 Comments
So she’s never heard of the Irish Republican Army? You know, the terror group responsible for doing this just three years before 9/11? Or maybe she’s never heard of this either. The IRA, PIRA or RIRA, call them what you will – they’re all Catholic.
It really, really makes my blood boil that Reichpublitards like Coulter don’t grasp this simple fact: Britain was attacked with guns and with bombs on a regular basis for thirty years by these people, and most of their funding came from Irish American donations. I’ve heard it alleged that McDonalds and GM were the IRA’s biggest contributors for a long time.
And closer to home, how about Timothy McVeigh? Was he a Muslim? No.
Or Mossad – most European countries regard the Israeli Secret Police as an illegal terrorist organisation because of their actions both in the Middle East and in Europe – pretty sure they’re all Jewish, no Muslims there.
I thought the whole McDonalds/IRA thing was just an urban myth?
Noraid on the other hand …
p.s. Yes Coulter is an idiot and she’s not the only one who thinks this.
Well, I’ve heard the McDonalds charity boxes referred to as “the IRA box” by quite a few Micky D management…
Not the most convincing argument I’ve heard … IIRC it’s something to do with payments to the IRA which is part of the US tax system. It’s along the same lines as someone finding NSA in Windows code and linking it to something else than what was intended.
Ah well, I’ll still stick to Burger King – far better burgers :-)
But, Custador, don’tcha know it’s only terrorism if it happens in America? [rolls eyes]
Ann Coulter is an idiot.
Actually, I think “terrorism” has been redefined to mean “any act of violence committed by a Muslim”.
The official list created by the US of terrorist organizations contains many domestic terrorist groups – including ELF (Environmental Liberation Front) and similar groups. They aren’t religious, but they still cause destruction.
And closer to home, how about Timothy McVeigh? Was he a Muslim? No.
I got into that argument a couple of times. Several people told me that you can’t be a terrorist and work alone or with just another person (Nichols). You have to be part of a terrorist organization to be considered a terrorist.
I don’t remember when that became part of the definition, but alright. By that standard, folks like Hasan down as Ft. Hood are also not terrorists. Strangely, that’s when the discussion breaks down.
The shoe bomber (who’s British, in case you didn’t know) was also working alone.
They call them a “lone wolf” terrorist
While I don’t claim that Israel is perfect and have nothing to be criticized for, far from that. I have a problem with the way that Israel is being unfairly attacked in some circles for actions that if preformed by any other nation will be considered 100% legitimate. Mossad is not a “secret police” but an Intelligence service and while, like any other such organization, may sometime act in the shady areas is not a terrorist organization. For your point, there are Jewish terrorists. A terrorist organization was exposed among the religious right in Israel in the 80’s then there was the guy who shot PM Rabin and another guy was arrested a couple of months ago and so far the police can tie him to at least one murder and several attempts against arabs, messianic jews, gays and people on the political left.
I’ll quote my own post:
most European countries regard the Israeli Secret Police as an illegal terrorist organisation
Now, I know that from my own experiences as an intelligence officer in Britain 5 years ago. Other agencies than Mossad just don’t get away with the things that Mossad does, I absolutely promise you.
The fact that you have decided to refer to Mossad as the Israeli secret police is the best demonstration of the bias. You wouldn’t refer to CIA as the american secret police, a term which have very specific connotations, even if you disagree with their methods. My data regarding the way Israel is treated is from reading the way it is being presented in the media so I don’t know what kind of thing Mossad is allowed to get away with but since you say you have other information I’ll have to take your word on that, but if you follow the publicly available information It’s obvious that israel is being required by the media and by organizations such as the UN to hold to the kind of standards that no other country was ever required to follow.
You wouldn’t refer to CIA as the american secret police
No, because the FBI fulfills that role. Constitutional limits mean that the CIA has to be very careful about what it does on home soil, and in fact it often asks MI6 to come to America and carry out covert tasks on its behalf since Britain has no law against carrying out tasks on US soil.
israel is being required by the media and by organizations such as the UN to hold to the kind of standards that no other country was ever required to follow.
Israel is being asked to uphold both international law and modern standards of humane decency, and it fails on both counts. Let me ask you something, if Israel took the West Bank as a “buffer” to prevent attacks, then why are Palestinian farmers routinely beaten and evicted by settlers who want to build their own farms on the land and regard it as their divine right? Why (only last month) did the Israeli army evict 16 entire families from an East Jerusulem block of flats and gove those flats to Israeli Jews with no due process or legal recourse? Because Israel’s government actually believes that God gives them the right to behave that way. Same old, same old: We are the “chosen people”, all others are subject to our whims. C*nts, basically.
Israel took the west bank after it was attacked, something that is being conveniently forgotten. As for acts by settlers, I’m with you 100% on that one and the police and military can and should be do more to stop that (They try occasionally for example providing security to the olive pickers next to Itshar which is a known truble point). The east jerusalem issue is much more complex then what you present. The settlers have a bill of sale that have been going through the courts for a long time now. There are some in the israeli government who believe that god gave us BS but the majority is a lot more practical. Surveys repeatedly show a solid majority of Israelis who support a peace agreement that will involve a complete redraw from the west bank providing that is an answer to the security issue. The big problem at the moment is that the fact that as soon as Israel evacuated both south Lebanon and Gaza they immediately became a base for rocket launch into Israel that made it easier to the political right to present their case that the risk is too high.
I completely understand the need to have a buffer-zone to prevent rocket attacks. This to me is a difficult issue, and will not be resolved by extremism on either side. Hezbolah in particular need to either become more moderate or to become gone before there will be peace – let’s be honest, a two-state solution is the only way.
I agree that a two state solution is the only option that is even remotely likely to work and as I mentioned before surveys show a steady majority of Israelis who support that kind of solution at least over the last 20 or so years since I been old enough to get interested in politics. However no solution will be possible until the Palestinians make a decision to commit to a peaceful solution and the international community have an important role in helping that transition by stopping their enabling of the extremists by the one sided treatment of the situation. Unlike many of their so called supporters I have more respect to the Palestinians so when they make a statement that their aim is the distraction of Israel then I will take their word for it rather then giving some excuse about how they just say it to make the extremists among them happy. Personally I’m not optimistic since neither side has a real leadership that can make the kind of hard choices that are necessary but this is one case I hope like hell I’m wrong.
I think some of it comes down to a difference in perception. Israel is perceived as a “Western” nation despite being in the Middle East, and it’s therefore harder to excuse their behaviours. On the other hand, Palestines are perceived almost as “barbarians” because of theire dogged theocracy, so their behaviour is excused by their nature to a certain extent. I don’t say it’s right, but I think it’s so.
I also think you need to look at the difference in death tolls – a bazooka from a distance into a town (rarely causing death or injury, not that that makes it right), the retaliation for which is a helicopter gunship blowing the crap out of a village and killing dozens…. Peanuts and sledghammers, no?
*Ahem*, conducting kidnappings on foreign soil is naughty no matter who does it. I take your point that everyone does it, but nobody is so brazen about it, except perhaps the CIA, and they get excoriated for such behavior by the world community as well.
They get HELP from European countries. Britain let them stop off to refuel their planes carrying rendition victims, places like Romania have dungeons for rent…
Coulter’s quote is madness. The murder of Dr. Tiller was a politically motivated act designed to scare others into changing their way of life, is that not terrorism? She likely thinks it was a good idea, though. People such as her and the Fox News team seem genuinely out of touch with reality and do not appear to process the world and its definitions in the same way as everyone else.
They get HELP from European countries. Britain let them stop off to refuel their planes carrying rendition victims, places like Romania have dungeons for rent…
You think that no Brit or other Euro ever unloaded a syrette of Ketamine into somebody’s kneck on behalf of the US? “Extraordinary renditon”, such a sanitised phrase for a sudden, violent abduction.
Not to mention ETA – the Spanish Basque separatist group
Rofl, they don’t. EVERYONE hates Ann Coulter. That’s why she’s on the news, gets book deals, etc. Literally everyone actively hates this woman, political stance notwithstanding. I can’t think of a single person I know who agrees with a single thing she says. She says these things to get attention and to make money by being outrageous. The people who ideologically are most likely to fall in line behind her typically don’t like her because she’s a woman who is obnoxious, successful, and largely without scruples. Everyone else hates her for what I hope are obvious reasons.
I really want to believe you, but I personally know people who not only agree with her, but think just like she does (or at least claims to for the shock value).
Coulter has quite a large, committed fanbase, just like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh do.
She must be ’shrooming:
Congress has it within its power to prevent the next attack, but it won’t. When the Sears Tower is attacked, the president is assassinated,[my emphasis] St. Patrick’s Cathedral is vaporized, anthrax is released in the subway systems or Disneyland is nuked, remember: Congress could have stopped it, but didn’t.
If the president gets assassinated I can pretty much guarantee that the assassin will be a loyal viewer of Ann Coulter and Glen Beck. The hypocrisy of this loathsome woman makes my skin crawl.
By the way, I would think that if “Disneyland is nuked” the American people would owe the nuker sincere thanks….
Aww, that’s the happiest place on earth!
On the other hand, if you nuked disneyland you’d kill more international tourists than Americans. At least that’s something…
:P
It’d be worth it just to see the look on Micky Mouse’s face …
I’m pretty sure Mickey Mouse’s face would be vaporized if you nuked Disneyland
:P
So where’s the downside?
Paxman for the win.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aiHbUplz3k
She’s clearly a person that can aver anything without any evidence, but in saying that she goes close to the truth.
Denying that there’s a problem with Islam is a political correctness that an atheist shouldn’t afford for himself: religions are clearly not dangerous at the same level, every religion is a (different) ideology: so a Jain is muche less dangerous that a Christian, as like as – in this historical moment – Muslims are dangerous, first of all for themselves.
It’s the proviso “in this historical moment” that is the big clue it really has little to do with the religion itself. Historically, Christianity utterly pwns Islam on body count–no contest. But the essences of these religions have changed little, if at all. The issue is more likely to be one of economics and local cultural idiosyncrasy.
The issue is more likely to be one of economics and local cultural idiosyncrasy
Well, so you’ll find easily a Palestinian Christian suicide bomber? Nope. There is a consistent minority of Christians among Palestinians, and they suffer the same occupation, the same wall, the same poverty, the same corrupt politicians, but there was never a Christian suicide bomber.
By the way, where are the Tibetan suicide bombers?
I have no sympathy at all for Christianity, I also think that Jesus – in a lot of aspects – was a negative character, but this doesn’t blind me.
Saying religion are all the same, is like saying that all ideologies are all the same: false, a Gian (those fools that don’t kill any kind of animal), as far as he is a fanatic, he will never ever kill you.
My friend Ahmed, not joking (I’ve volunteered 6 months in Palestine), is a really good person. He would never harm no one, he would do anything for others, but well if her sister goes to live alone, he would kill her. Just kill her, plainly like this. Why? Because he “feels” that God asks this to him.
I think it is really arrogant and condescending to decide what is the reason one person is willing to blow himself in a crowded bus in Jerusalem, when he says it. Religion. Allah.
And, by the way, any serious statistic on terrorism says it has nothing to do with poverty, or low education level: a terrorist it is more likely to be rich, and well-educated.
(I’m sorry if my English is not perfect, I hope what I mean is clear)
I’m not saying religions are all the same. I’m simply saying that religion is a coincidental factor to the specific phenomenon of terrorism. If the world was primarily ruled by wealthy Muslims, and Christianity was associated with poverty and post-colonialism, you’d see Christian suicide bombers and the Muslim world making the same arguments about Christianity as you are making here about Islam.
But, please, Elemenope, don’t bypass my argument. Economic wealth has nothing to do with terrorism. This was George Bush’s argument: Terrorism is caused by Poverty and lack of Education, he repeated this an incredible number of times. And he was wrong.
Among Muslims not the poor, but the rich, are more likely to be terrorists: Bin Laden is a member of the 2° richest family in Saudi Arabia, none of the 9/11 terrorists were poor, the same for the London subway bombing (one was a surgeon!), every poll conducted in Muslim countries shows that the more a family is rich more they will agree with suicide bombing, every statistic conducted on suicide bombers shows that there are more suicide bombers coming from middle-class families than from poor-families.
Zimbabwe, Birmania, Malawi, Haiti, are the 4 poorest countries in the world.
And they are hugely poorer than Arab countries: if wealth and terrorism were linked why you wouldn’t find at all terrorism in these countries?
And, please, answer: if it’s not religion, why the same, identical condition, among Palestinians Arab-Christians and Arab-Muslims gives a so different response?
Why there are not Christian-Palestinian suicide bombers?
They don’t tend to be rich (other than the occasional mastermind), they tend to be lower to mid middle class. And by educated, I hope you don’t mean from a madrassa, as that really doesn’t count.
Actually, it is more likely that terrorism is directly correlated with domestic political stability and repression. Economics plays a wide role in the stability and repressiveness of regimes (capital flows more easily to stable and free places than places that are not), and that feedback cycle of terrorism/capital abandonment explains the persistence of terrorism in countries that the mere adherence to Islam does not. So, poverty directly does not explain the class-identity of terrorists themselves, but explains very well the conditions requisite for terrorism to become an acceptable political option.
BTW, you don’t see Bangladeshi-Muslims and Indonesian-Muslims lining up to be terrorists, either, and there are far more of them than there are Arab-Muslims. I think the answer to your question about Palestinian-Christians has more to do with religion being used as shorthand for political affiliation, and the issues of terrorism in those regions are basically masked nationalism.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know how you don’t find it incredibly arrogant to decide what is the real reason why Muslim terrorists do what they do. There are plenty of Saudi-Iraqi-Indonesian-Malaysian-Palestinian-American-British Muslim suicide bombers that tell you clearly why they do it: for Allah. They quote the Koran, they speak about Holy war, they say what they hate are the infidels, but then… you decide that that is not the TRUE reason.
You know the true reason.
It’s not arrogance, it’s logic. Islam is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for terrorism. That it may be proximate to some terrorist acts is immaterial; if they did not have the Qur’an available to justify their violence, they would use something else, as terrorists the world over have done and will undoubtedly continue to do. If your theory were correct, we would find historical evidence stretching back to the founding of Islam which implicates it disproportionately in religiously motivated violence. Since we don’t (as I mentioned, Christianity takes the cake there), your theory must be incorrect.
And honestly, stated reasons are usually the least accurate way to find actual causative factors. We know from contemporary neurobiology and psychology that people are only dimly aware of what actually motivates them to do things; after-the-fact or surface justifications are generally useless for figuring out the underlying causative mechanisms.
Giovanni, that’s a little obtuse. Do you really think there’s be so many people willing to hate us if we didn’t give them a reason? Islam is just their excuse.
That people will do anything in the name of a strong enough ideal that promises them a better life?
Take a group of people with sh*tty lives, give them a strong ideal to rally about and voilá, we’ve terrorists. Religion may be a catalyst, but it’s hardly the only one. Ethnicity, patriotism and political ideals can be just as strong.
Custador wrote…
> Do you really think there’s be so many people willing to hate us
> if we didn’t give them a reason?
The implication is that since many people hate Americans, we should suspect that Americans must have given them a reason. It’s a coherent argument to make. It only carries weight, though, if it’s a principle that you’d apply consistently.
There are so many people willing to hate Blacks, Jews, Gays. Hate is directed at people with high IQs, people with low IQs, people who are extremely good-looking, people who are extremely ugly, etc. In some of these cases, the haters go so far as assaulting or killing Blacks, Jews, Gays, etc… just as Muslim extremists go so far as killing Americans.
Should we, in all these cases, start with a suspicion that the groups being hated must have given the killers a reason?
@ Stuart,
Your point is only valid so far as it goes. Until the KKK rule nations and motivate all the people of those nations to kill off the whole of Africa, then it stops short.
The comparison is also a little invalid because your trying to talk about demographic groups within your own society as being comparable to other entire societies. That’s really not the case.
Now, if a large and organised group of gay men started killing fundamentalist Christians, there you would have a cogent paradigm for how Islam feels about the US – but that’s not what the reality is.
The problem with talking about the theoretical is that sooner or later it must encounter reality.
Custador wrote…
> Now, if a large and organised group of gay men started killing
> fundamentalist Christians, there you would have a cogent paradigm
> for how Islam feels about the US
If you feel that Americans killing Muslims is what initiated bombings by Muslims… then that’s the argument to be made. You can cite the cases where Americans killed Muslims, and explain if/why you feel they’re the root cause of attacks against American citizens by groups like Al Queda.
That’d be a cogent argument, and a far different one from “if they hate us, we must have given them a reason.”
@ Stuart:
Well okay then. Theft of land from Arabia to create Israel – that was down to Britain and the US in the 1940s. Supporting both Iran and Iraq by providing weapons and intelligence thus extending a war for over eight years – that was the US in the Iran / Iraq war. Interfering in a local war and putting the DICTATOR of Kuwait back on his throne – yep, the US and Britain again. Seriously dude, neither of out countries are blameless in this.
That’d be a cogent argument, and a far different one from “if they hate us, we must have given them a reason.”
Which is NOT WHAT I SAID! I said:
“Do you really think there’s be so many people willing to hate us if we didn’t give them a reason?”
Which is a question, not a statement. I was inviting you to research and THINK. You failed.
Sorry Stuart, but anybody with half a brain and a basic (and I do mean BASIC) knowledge of history would not have needed this explained to the degree that you’ve made me explain it to you. This stuff (and more) is common knowledge. Wikipedia “American involvement in the Middle East”, for frakk’s sake!
Giovanni, your friend reminds me of a friend I used to have. He was a devout muslim and a wonderful, friendly and polite guy who was just great company. Unfortunately, he also believed that AIDS was a plague sent by god to kill the homosexuals, that the Jews faked the holocaust to get sympathy for stealing Israel and that terrorism against people who didn’t share your way of life was justified. Over the years, we drifted apart, in no small part due to his fundamentalist beliefs that I just couldn’t understand.
Indeed. And, by the way, Ahmed is one of the more moderates there.
But yes, as this conversation shows, it is so difficult for religious moderates, and also for atheist, to understand what does it mean to be SURE, to have faith, that God asks you something.
It has always to do with something else: poverty, lack of education, etc.
Never religion, as everyone doing such things claims.
Or they are always dragged by a mastermind, who “uses” religione.
But, the reality is that even those masterminds actually believe such things: like NIzatr Rayan, Hamas’ military boss in Gaza. He received the phone call “we are bombing your house”. He gathered his 4 wifes is 13 kids, and waited to be a shaeed. He was the mastermind.
But funnily that doesn’t seem to be endemic or even restricted to religion. A lot of people are SURE yet won’t gladly explode other people in the name of their SUREness. A bunch of otherwise nice decent people will be SURE of their own country’s superiority and gladly go butcher grossly underpowered countries in the name of this SUREness, risking their own lives for it.
Funnily, terrorism is still not a plague, even though a lot of people are SURE about their God(s) of choice. Or are you saying they aren’t SURE enough?
That doesn’t count as “never”.
Exactly, as I said: with one exception: if God wants it, because that must be Good.
As Weinberg says: “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion”.
I dislike the Weinberg quote, as politics and nationalism and patriotism just as easily inspire good people to do evil things as religion does. That is why you see huge discrepancies in rates of terrorism among Muslim-majority countries. It is about politics, and indirectly about economics, and Islam has precious little to do with it (causatively).
Really well put and reasonable. Correlation is not causation.
*COUGH COUGH* Cuba.. *COUGH* Iran *COUGH COUGH* Nicaragua…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state_terrorism
How to upset a Republican, lesson one: Shout “Bay of pigs!” and “Saigon!” at them ;-)
Chechen rebels? Basque separatists? The KKK? Regardless of motivation, need I go on?
No!
Terrorist is only a suicide guy with a turban and a beard, and possibly darker skin, you silly!
(Jokes a part, Chechenya is largely islamic…)
Timothy McVeigh was a red-blooded American who was quoted as saying “Science is my religion”.
He was not a Muslim and he is also individually responsible more American deaths than any other terrorist in U.S. history. The fact is that the WTC buildings were a global target. The OK City bombing was strictly an American government target.
If I somehow get bitten by a radioactive spider or develop some kick ass mutant powers, Ann Coulter is on my short list of people I intend in saving the planet from.
Being a religous nut improves the chance that they can brainwash you to become a terrorist, but it does not stop with muslims. Christians bombing abortion clicnics, IRA,…
She’s just doing this shit for that Republican moola. She’s a fucking tool just like FOX News. Say anything about 911, Muslims, Jews, Iraq, Osama, tobacco, and Jesus and she’s got the Republican vote.