Terrorism Apologist Helped Nix PBS Film

Charles has an item up regarding a member of a panel that reviewed Islam vs. Islamists prior to PBS shutting it down:

LGF reader Paul Green emailed some interesting information about one member of the five-member panel that reviewed the documentary, DePaul University Professor Aminah McCloud. McCloud apparently showed some footage from the film to members of the Nation of Islam, and has very close ties to the extremist group herself.

I came across a two part on line interview with McCLoud. Part two here and Part one here. As you'll see from the extended quote below via the first link, in McCloud's view, 9/11 was our fault. In essence, according to her ... we deserved to be attacked due to our greed and injustice. How wonderfully moderate is that?

Dr. Aminah McCloud: The root cause of terrorism is a combination of injustice and greed. President Bush asserted that the people who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon committed acts of terror because they hate our freedoms. I doubt that but I would say that our freedoms have not driven us to act justly in the world or at home. I have not ever read of a powerful society which acted justly being attacked for anything nor have I read of greed leading to anything other than injustice. Muslims who can escape the injustices in the Muslim world seem to thrive on western freedoms though they do not understand them. Much of what is happening today is in response to continued injustice along with some who take advantage of the atmosphere to create further injustice. We have a history of supporting those who will let us have our way with their countries’ resources. It is important to note that without the assistance of Muslims who are corrupt and those Muslims who benefit from that corruption, we would not be able to do what we do.

Comments

[Phoenix]

Christianity was established as the official religion around 320 A.D. at the Council of Nicea. Constantine realized there was a group of people willing to defy laws and to die for this Jesus prophet, and this undermined Roman authority so much, he figured the only way to stay in power was to become a Christian and to declare Christianity 'The' religion. That started the Dark Ages when priests were set loose to determine which gospels were the ones that best held the powers in their seats.

Politics trumps religion.

Religious wars trump political wars and that is what lead to a thousand year void: Fear promulgated by Catholic priests. It weakened the Greco/Roman Civilization to all the other factors you want to apply to its downfall, but none of those factors alone would have succeeded in bringing down such a magnificenct, open civilization. Only religion is capable ot that kind of destruction.

Sadly, even Jesus disliked religion. He did not want it. He must have known what would and did happen when man used him to say that what they wanted was what He wanted.

As far as the decline of our great country - I think both sides are equally to blame. Any politican who fails to take into grave consideration the vagaries of human nature, who thinks he is above that, is dooming us to failure. Abraham Lincoln might be the last president who thought first of human nature and second of politics.

[Phoenix]

Zif,

Without going into past history beyond twenty years, what would you have done after 9/11 if you were Bush? Serious question. I have no intention of making fun of your answer.

~~

This got lost above. I'd still like to hear what you would have done, Zif.

[bloodrage bob]

i've been asking that same questions of liberals for five-and-a-half years now, phoenix.

they *will NOT* answer. or, if they do, the answer will be a speech about how "why didn't we attack saudi arabia; freeze saudi accounts; etc etc."

when asked the obvious follow-up questions, "are you therefore advocating an invasion/occupation?destruction of saudi arabia? are you saying we should destroy mecca? are you saying we should seize their oil as penalty for pissing us off?", the liberal will revert back to default mode: they *will NOT* answer. they will in fact run away. one wonders what it is they're afraid of. might it be "putting an answer down on paper"?

[bloodrage bob]

and, phoenix, you need to be careful about blaming "religion" for the downfall of rome. the romans were plenty religious before jesus or constantine came along: every home had its household gods; there were temples on every other corner; and the pantheon wasn't put up for no reason.

are you saying that christianity alone is the religion responsible for the fall of rome? well, gibbon would probably agree with you....but doing that makes other religions fair game for being blamed for social evils. like "islam", say. thusly: "islam is entirely responsible for the mental/material/spiritual deterioration of everyone and every nation that practices it." (winston churchill would agree with THAT.)

*I"M* ok with making wildly broad, horribly unfair statements like that. are you? then too, even after all that, i'd still rather live in a christian country than an islamic one. wouldn't you? so we probably ought to take that into account, too. whoo! i'm *talkative* today! maybe i should ease off the ol' vodka bong....

[nowinger]

The Romans were religious, before Christianity, but not intolerant. You are also disingenious to use the date of christs' birth, rather than the date when Rome became established as the official religion and Christians began to get a taste of real power. The Christians did a total `180, before, when the pagans were in charge, they claimed all they wanted to do was be free to worship their own god, once they got state support they started suppressing other religions, making them illegal and then killing people not only for NOT being Christians but for not hewing to the line of offcial Christianity. The rise of Christianity coincides almost exactly with the decline of Rome. Who finally closed the socratic academy in Athens after over a thousand years? The Christians did. Who became pre-occupied with fereting out pagans and heretics rather than securing their borders? The Christians. Who presided over the fall of Rome and humanity forgetting how to build roads, make concrete, build domes and a host of other things including reading and writing? The Christians. The pagan Romans were eminantly practical. If you paid your taxes and kept your religion private, they didn't interfere. The Christians wanted more. THey wanted to eliminate other faiths and wrong thinking Christians to boot. Who tore down almost all of the old Roman temples? Christians. When I said 'education' I meant things like the socratic academies and the training and rules related to barbarians entering Roman society and getting Roman citizenship...all this went by the wayside during the later centuries.

[Fred Beloit]

nowinger, let's get back to at least minimally more modern times, do you mind? Boo, hoo, hooo. We have been fighting for four years and still haven't won. It's madness, boo hoo hoo. It is true it has been four years and no end is in sight. But only someone with very little knowledge of military history (or someone who is blinded by the emotions of his/her politics) could possibly call Iraq a defeat at this point. Victories and defeats are determined by casualties, ground held, will to fight, and a lot of other factors, but time isn't one of them, though timing may be. What are happening in Iraq are battles and skirmishes, a collection of which constitutes a war. And speaking of casualties, they are extremely light (though of course most regrettable). As far as will to carry on, the troops actually fighting have plenty of it. It is only the weepy Left and their MSM flacks who have lost the will. No, make that who hardly had any to begin with. I'm surprised at your lack of understanding of this simple issue.

[nowinger]

No one answered my original question: for how long are you willing to put US troops and US billions into Iraq in order to 'win'? Are we talking years or decades? Forget the fact that the majority of generals were AGAINST the surge and the military leaders in Iraq DID NOT ASK FOR OR WANT MORE TROOPS, but for how long do we 'surge on'? Forever? We were in Vietnam for what, 15 years? And yeah, I know in the winger mind we were 'winning' and would have 'won' except for Congress, but that is revisionist history, the Tet Offensive turned the country against the war because nobody believed the viet cong and north vietnamese would have been able to launch such a big coordinated attack after we'd been there, proclaiming victory for so long. The Tet Offensive showed that the enemy was stronger and more determined than the public had been told.

[Phoenix]

BB,

I have this mild caveat in my comment above to address your concerns: "Religious wars trump political wars and that is what lead to a thousand year void: Fear promulgated by Catholic priests. It weakened the Greco/Roman Civilization to all the other factors you want to apply to its downfall, but none of those factors alone would have succeeded in bringing down such a magnificenct, open civilization. Only religion is capable ot that kind of destruction."

I got a graduate degree in this - on my own for my own pleasure - and in working on it, read several of Elaine Pagels books. Google her and check her out.

Nowinger said it better than I did, so I'll leave it at that.

(And keep on being talkative.... with your vodka 'bong' :) I like it.... :)

[nowinger]

For my part, I don't want to live in a theocracy, not a Christian one or an Islamic one. When government and religion are one in the same, persecution will inevitably follow. I find it so ironic that the wingers, mostly right wing christians, relentlessly criticize islam, when the muslims believe so many of the same exact things that the wingers do: sex before marriage 'ruins' girls, adultery is a crime, homosexuality is a sin/crime, abortion is a sin/crime, women should be submissive to their husbands, gods law is above mans law [how many bible quotes from the wingers on this one?], an eye for an eye punishments. The wingers and the muslims have more in common with each other than wingers and secular humanists do.

[bloodrage bob]

gotta be quick today - got actual *work* to do.

1) thankee, (st.) phoenix, for the kind words: i'll be talkative later

2) what a sad, duped little tool you are, nowinger. you're only just too happy to toss off a 50-line rant about the evils of, and the sinister intolerant nature of christianity. (just like teacher told you to!) but we all know that you'd rather die than write something similar about....oh...."islam", say. i haven't seen any bitter rants from you or people like you about *muslim* intolerance; and *muslim* church closings; and *muslim* pagan statue bombings, etc. care to comment on the fact that when a given country is taken over by highly-religious muslims, that country's literacy rate goes DOWN? quite a lot down? no? no comment? go figure.

and i know i never will. teacher told you clowns NEVER to do that! and being the gutless wonders you are, you'd rather *die* than defy teacher's will.

3) you really need to read a book someday, nowinger, instead of relying on walter cronkite for your history "knowledge". the tet offensive was an *enormous* defeat for the VC. they threw everything they had into it, and got their clocks cleaned for their troubles. you only think it was a "defeat" for us because that's how the idiot cronkite reported it. post-war interviews with senior VC & NVA commanders report them still being amazed at how badly they were beaten; and even more amazed at how the american defeatist media spun it into a VC victory.

for what it's worth, they were all quite grateful for cronkite's invaluable help. the american media didn't report that much....for some unknown reason.

[nowinger]

I see my last post tested your reading comprehension skills and found them lacking. What part of 'don't want to live in either an Islamic or Christian theocracy did you not understand? LOL

[bloodrage bob]

anyone else noticing that the normally quite fearless & talkative 'zifnab' has chosen not to answer phoenix's question about 9-11?

why do y'all suppose that might be?

[Fred Beloit]

nowinger, what gave you the silly idea that "the majority of generals were against the surge"? You've been sneaking over to Kos in your spare time haven't you? Or have you personally polled all General Officers in the Army and Marines? You sure you haven't missed even one Brigadier? On the question of how long we should stay to prevent a mass slaughter: we have been Korea for over fifty-five years without doing much fighting there for over fifty years. It is all in the cause of preventing a mass slaughter of our allies, the South Koreans. How come Chuck Schumer and Zifnab aren't complaining about that, hmmmmmm? No one can say how long this one will take. It would be ridiculous to speculate. And the idea of putting an end date on our actions there is militarily the stupiest thing any Congress persons have ever come up with.

[Phoenix]

Fred,

I don't know the exact number, but we have over a hundred U.S. military bases around the world. Where do we need one most? The ME, of course. I, too, do not understand why some people don't see the need for us to BE there.

I don't know how many bases we have in Germany, alone, but I know I lived on at least four or five of them. Army Brat. :)

[bloodrage bob]

hmmmm. STILL no response from the normally-impossible-to-shut-up zifnab to st. phoenix's quite reasonable "9-11" question. (didn't that good-lookin' "bloodrage" fella predict exactly that?)

i wonder why the uncharacteristic silence from the chatty leftish poster....hmmmm. what *could* the reason be?

[Bill]

It's quite sad that the publicly funded PBS is run by people who hate America.