We're not the only ones saying it. The British have released a detailed dossier. (Specific evidence that would compromise intelligence operations has been redacted, as is proper).

Our NATO allies are saying that they are convinced (including -- wonder of wonders -- the irascible French[g]). Further, there is a clear link between Bin Ladin's organization and the Taliban.

To me, the most damning evidence is that Bin Ladin ordered his other associates around the world to return to Afghanistan "no later than September 10th." Three of the hijackers are known associates of Bin Ladin; the others are being traced.

To those who doubt, any district attorney worth his salt could take just the evidence in that British dossier and obtain an indictment without breaking a sweat.

Since we're talking about an act of war, we will respond militarily. That's proper, too.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Answers

Well said, Stephen. There is a contingent over at Unk's which is blindly stupid beyond belief.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

CAREFUL who YOU point fingers at ERRINGBOY.

ESAD.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

I did not post the msg. to ErringBoy above.

I declare JIHAD: Death to Trolls.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

CPR,

I know you didn't post it. The imposter obviously forgot that I can check these things. :)

Peter,

Even the Pakistanis (the Pakistanis!) are convinced now. What more does anyone need? :)

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Oh, and Peter?

I have a *strong* suspicion that the anti-war nuts at Unks are actually (maybe) a handful of people (2 or three at most). They post repeatedly under a zillion different handles. Note that it's a lot of cut and paste.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Well well, what have we here? A group of religious fanatics, who find the overwhelming preponderance of evidence insufficient if it violates their religious convictions. Uh huh.

This sounds familiar. The irony of Stephen Poole noticing the mote in the Taliban's eye is delicious.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Thanks "GARY FLINT".

Only DUCT TAPE NORTH uses the MOTE analogy.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Charlie:

Actually, that analogy is used by many, when appropropriate. However, those fixated on Gary North, who hang on his every word to the exclusion of the outside world, might not know this. So trust me.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Yeah, right. I *really* hang on Duct Tape's Bull shit.

Get Real.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Either Duct Tape or one of his zombies posted this on one of the TB 2kDeadEnds. Its his latest to revive himself. Out of 130 "readers", no one replied. Hopefully, even those Brain Deads might have learned something from 1/1/2000.

http://pub16.ezboard.com/ftb2kfulltopicfrm1.showMessage? topicID=3349.topic

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Following that link produces a page that says the post has been deleted. I doubt that a genuine Gary North post would have been deleted, so maybe you were fooled?

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Flint, I think your response to Stephen Poole is just plain nutty.

I'm not exactly a Bible scholar, but the mote (very small particle) I'm sure refers to ignoring the real lumber in one's own eye. Mote, with respect to the Taliban savages?!

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Flint,

Are you suffering from indigestion, or just spoiling for an argument? I guess I'm supposed to take this seriously? :)

Comparing anything that even a Jerry Falwell has said or done on his worst day to what Al-Quaeda did to 6,000 innocent souls in NYC isn't just inaccurate, it's borderline reprehensible. You know better than that.

The Taliban/Al-Qeada alliance is EVIL, probably the clearest example of evil to exist on this planet since Adolph Hitler. I would say that whether they were adherents to Christianity or any other religion. So would most people with more than a thimble full of common sense.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Stephen:

I absolutely agree with you. I was just pointing out that the Taliban had originally said they'd turn over bin Laden if they were provided with convincing evidence, and we subsequently learn that where religious convictions are involved, NO evidence can possibly be convincing. I noticed that we have seen this happen before, on this very forum.

Personally, I think every one of the Taliban should be strung up until they die, their only food being their own body parts cut off them and fed to them in the meanwhile. They deserve no less.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Flint, religious convictions have nothing to do with the game the Taliban is trying to play ("just show us the evidence..."). It's just a vicious political con job.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Peter:

You are drawing a distinction without a difference.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

No, Flint, there is a big difference. This sort of con job is typical of totalitarian regimes, whether religious/fascist (Taliban) or anti-religious (Stalinist Communism).

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Flint,

I've got to side with Peter here.

Being a religious person (and thus being familiar with the mentality[g]), I can *respect* those of other sects and faiths, even though I disagree with them. The "religion" of the Taliban types is a thin veneer over, and wholly-contrived justification for, plain ol' totalitarianism.

By the mid-Medieval period, the Popes were doing the same thing. They began to ignore the teachings of Jesus and raise armies, to conquer and to live a life finer than that of any of the Caesars. Disagreement was suppressed totally -- using only a subset of Christianity and Catholic doctrine.

(Hey, it kept the proles in line! If you misbehaved, they could not only kill you slowly and painfully, but they could condemn you to eternal Hellfire to boot!)

The Catholic church cleaned up its act during the Counter-Reformation, and while I don't agree with some of its theology, I deeply respect the Vatican today, especially the current Pope.

But if it were to go back to the practices of the Warrior Popes, I'd condemn it in a minute. So would most people. Likewise, I condemn those morons who claim to be "Christian" and use it to justify racism (ex., the Klan) or to kill those who disagree with them (ex., those who kill doctors who perform abortions). They have taken a perversion of Christianity and have used it for their own ends.

There is a strong parallel here. The Taliban has used a perversion of Islam to justify mass murder and oppression. They don't even practice what they preach; for example, the Quran contains a strong prohibition against alcohol. Mohammed Atta and several of his compatriots went out and drank like sailors before the attacks.

That may not have registered with you, but believe me, to a religious type like yours truly, it's very telling.

Simply put: the Taliban is not simply a group of Fundies who refuse to see Truth. There is only a most superficial comparison to be made between them and the Christian Fundies who reject evolution. The latter usually place a strong emphasis on family, religiously donate a tenth of their salaries to various charities and are quite patriotic.

Thus my reaction to your observation. It's simply incorrect. I'm sure there are plenty of lower-tier members of the group who are quite religious, but the leaders are just bloodthirsty hoodlums who are USING Islam to maintain power.

Many of them aren't even Afghanistanis; they're people from other Islamic nations who came to the country to fight the Russians. They found some power and discovered that they like it. The religion is just a convenient way to justify their suppression of the Proles.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Stephen:

I guess you are in a position to draw fine distinctions I can't see from here. I have trouble understanding a NON-religious motivation for blowing up those stone carvings. So from here, the "devout" seem either dupes or dupers. And you say the Taliban can't be the dupes, because they are not patriotic, or don't have good family values (which might be true, I hadn't heard one way or another). Therefore, they must be using religion improperly. OK, I suppose popes and maybe even Jesse Jackson have done the same.

I simply see that the "inability" to draw obvious conclusions that violate religious tenets is a common thread here. You may be able to read their minds or more expert in causistry or whatever. I just see ducks.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Flint,

No, you are seeing what you WANT to see because it fits your (remarkably and surprisingly strong) anti-religious tendencies. You may laugh and point fingers at me, but mine are pointing right back at you: here is Flint, the rational and methodical, coloring and filtering his perception according to his predjudice.

Yes, even to the point of ignoring evidence that's inconvenient to his point of view.

In another thread here, you once again raised the tired argument that, if I'd been born in another society, I wouldn't believe as I do.

Not only is that an utterly pointless "what if?", I have addressed the premise behind it: the largest Christian fellowship in the world is in South Korea, which hardly has a "Christian" tradition. The church in Africa is growing exponentially faster than the church in the US and Canada. Why, Flint? How can this be, if the predjudices that one is raised with rule the day?

I even gave you links to prove my assertion; you waved them away because they didn't fit your cherished assumptions.

By the way: the destruction of those Bhuddist statues was pure politics. The leaders of the Taliban did it to mollify the mullahs in the movement (hey! an alliteration[g]).

Likewise, the Warrior Popes would sometimes throw bones at, or take action that mollified, the rank-and-file priests, who were usually far more religious than they.

The leaders of the Taliban are, as Peter correctly notes, just another form of Stalin/Hitler type. Calling them "religious" is more than a stretch.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Stephen:

You seem headed off in two different directions now, and I don't know which to address. Maybe a bit of both?

First, there is a general question of exactly what motivates a theocracy. After all, when the top priesthood is also the top political group, how can we tell if their actions are motivated by religious or political convictions?

I see very clearly that your answer is -- IF they behave as you think Christians should, they are being religious. OTHERWISE, they are being political. Even if they aren't nominally Christians at all. You simply reject the notion that non-Christian religions might have other than Christian values or beliefs. You even condemn Christians whose beliefs lead them to act in ways you don't like. What colossal convenience.

The second issue is, do "religious revelations" matching some specific dogma, happen to children who have never been exposed to that dogma? Or do the children interpret confusing experiences in terms of what they already know?

Your "answer" that Christianity (in various guises) has a strong missionary tradition, and that at least the label (if not always quite the agenda) has been portable across cultures, is a total non- sequitur, having nothing to do with the actual question. Hell, if I'd been brought up in a strongly voodoo household, I imagine I'd be likely to interpret confusion due to head trauma in voodoo terms regardless of how my ancestors were raised.

Meanwhile, my original contention was never countered -- that children (and even adults) use their own prior life experiences when interpreting new experiences. The Christian god, with all the trappings, doesn't seem to announce itself out of nowhere, except insofar as people are curious animals who crave explanations for everything, and will accept pure magic in lieu of nothing whatever in explanation.

Meanwhile, the religion of the Taliban may be nasty, limited, self- serving, etc. But from all appearances it STILL informs their behavior in important ways, nor is it correct to discount it entirely because you don't like that behavior, and claim their errors are 100% motivated by a lust for political power.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

But Flint, I thought you were arguing that the Taliban's religiousity was blinding them to the reality of what bin Laden was doing. They know perfectly well what he's been doing.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Is the Taliban regime (or any regime) driven more by politics or by religion? Perhaps it could be said that you can't really separate how much is religious and how much is political; in that case we are stuck with the confusion. But as I see it, there is a clear distinction. The political is the arena of social interaction; the religious is internal and private. (Actually I would call that spiritual, but whatever.)

Once you take private religious experience public in any way, you have fundamentally altered it. You get "organized religion" with its accompanying dogmas and codes guiding behavior. This is political.

It is relatively easy to keep religion out of politics, once you have made that distinction. It is much harder to keep politics out of religion!

The crux of the matter, to me, is that spiritual experience is open to interpretation by the mind. Pushing the definition of "political" a little further, I would say that *ALL* outward and visible manifestations of the spiritual are political, since they are one or more steps removed from the ineffable, universal spiritual essence - having been made into symbolic representations of it and not the real thing - all the way from "my ego" to "my country" to "my God"

It is very easy to miss the step of distinguishing the spiritual experience from the interpretation of that experience but it is so important. The Bible contains wisdom about this when it says "Now we see dimly, but soon face to face." But certainly the Bible does not have a lock on this and that is the point. Whether or not you believe in a particular religious interpretation is not the relevant thing here but humility before the spiritual, which is fundamentally beyond the scope of our literal mind to comprehend. Once you take your focus off the experience itself, and elevate your interpretation of it to the status of "truth," then others' experiences are automatically wrong. Take that to the nth degree of literal interpretation and you get the state-sponsored Jihad on a mission to wipe out the infidel. Not to mention the endless "evolution is a belief system" muck.

The U.S. keeps Church and State separate, for good and practical reasons based on the hard lessons of history, which show that it is actually not the religion itself (the private experience) that is a threat to politics, but *religiously-informed* politics that is a threat to real-world, workable politics. The states that don't make this distinction are those most in trouble today.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001

Peter:

Again, the difference is hard to define. I'm as sure the Taliban know what bin Laden has been doing (and have probably been actively involved), as I'm sure the anti-science believers understand science. Religion doesn't so much blind people to evidence, as render them *absolutely* unable to credit that evidence. After all, religious teachings are true by definition, which trumps empirical data every time.

Imagine if the bible stated unequivocally that water never runs downhill. In that case Christians could look at rivers and either not admit to any current, or not admit to any gradient. But what ultimately motivates these people remains a mystery to me. Maybe the "Poole test" is valid -- that whenever the protestation of religion improves someone's life compared to what it used to be, we can safely assume this is a political ploy.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001