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You're welcome. Yes, I wrote it. It's also posted on my blog:
my.barackobama.com/page/com...marklevin
Mark
----- Original Message ----
From: prometheuspan panprometheus <prometheuspan@hotmail.com>
To: The IR (International Relations) Forum <TheIRInternationalRelationsForum@groups.barackobama.com>
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 8:49:13 PM
Subject: [TheIRInternationalRelationsForum] RE: Is Islam the Most Violent Religion? - Bodycounts in Modern Hi
Thanks to who ever wrote this and who posted it.
I have often made this same argument, tho in not nearly this detail.
The real truth is that all three of these religions are pretty much in the same boat, but Christians kill a whole lot more than Jews or Islam Combined.
I have repeatedly found myself addressing the fake smear that obama was a muslim with the question;
"If he was, so what?"
This seems to be lost on most of them.
The simple fact is that the smear is racist, and assumes racist polarization of the electorate in order to work. That millions of people are then
willing to take up those torches and run with them is perhaps the most sickening and disgusting part of being an American right now.
The very idea that by calling obama a muslim we (they) are insulting him to be beneath the office of president is itself a gross politicization of
racist sentiment, which has been fostered in a thousand ways for purposes of the Iraq war.
I also point out that we lost the war in Iraq the first week. By continuing our anti muslim rhetoric, by going after oil wells and not protecting
human targets or even going after weapons depots, we proved to the Iraqis that we were not liberators, but oil raiders. That we were not Humanitarians,
but greed driven evil jerks. Thanks to Cheney and Bush and Halliburton, their ideas of the west in a negative light were amplified a thousand times
with direct evidence which we provided.
IF obama WAS Muslim, that would be only an awesome selling point to his capacity to broker a real live middle east peace process.
and yet, what do we get? A lie repeated a billion times to smear obama via racist religious sentiment.
The republican party is disintegrating, and they like to blame just the bush admin. The truth is that every aspect of the republican party is simply evil.
Any analysis of what they have done to our country bill after bill or law after law shows that they have simply been the party of, for, and by the corporations,
and against the people. They are a pack of liars and propagandists, and this is just one prime example of how they use the very worst in humanity to
divide and conquer the people and split them against each other. The republican party is hopefully doomed, and in the long run, these kinds of smears
are just more coffin nails.
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 19:29:09 -0400
To: TheIRInternationalRelationsForum@groups.barackobama.com
From: mlevin49@yahoo.com
Subject: [TheIRInternationalRelationsForum] Is Islam the Most Violent Religion? - Bodycounts in Modern History
Often, I come across the assumption that Islam is a more violent religion. It's an assumption that colors our international relations, late night comedy and national discourse. It has percolated into our worldview, and embedded itself there. This is a very dangerous misconception we are laboring under.
The suggestion that Obama being pegged as a former, current or hidden Muslim is a kiss of death for his electability (it is) is rarely taken to the next step - as to why "Muslim" is a dirty word to us. What does that say about us as Americans? Are we really the best country in the world if we cannot imagine an actual Muslim American winning a nomination or the Presidency? Aren't we supposed to be tolerant and not racist? Why don't we raise our hackles the same way when we see digs at Arabs, Mormons and Muslims as we do when blacks, Hispanics or Jewish people are targeted?
Militant Islam is seen by us as a bigger threat to human life than Western military power. Islam is seen as the violent religion. The quantitative hard evidence is completely in the other direction.
The killing/infliction of pain by the West and Islamist militants is different in style and expense, except at the final moments - explosives ripping through human flesh of innocent men, women and children. The first stages are radically different; one is a very expensive high-tech process which often involves pressing a button and never having to see who you are killing far away, the other is a low-tech, often suicidal effort with close proximity to the victim. Both achieve the same result, of terror, and of targeted and collateral death. Our collateral (innocent) bodycounts on them, far exceed the bodycount they exact on us. But somehow, all the technology and wizardry that precedes that last moment of shrapnel through flesh, somehow gives us a thicker veneer of being civilized than some suicide attacker or beheader. Why? Aren't we achieving the same grisly result?
Our analyses, pundits and media usually ignore this uncomfortable fact because it doesn't make us look moral, or civilized.
Our media (like that of every nation) reports empathetically on the suffering of Western victims, while largely ignoring the video coverage (if it exists) of what happens on the other side or letting us hear their side. Sometimes that video footage is never available - the poor don't have camcorders.
We have no reason to feel morally superior just because women have fewer rights in some Muslim countries - we do a better job in actually killing them.
Yes, we have much more blood on our hands than "they" do. I claimed this in an earlier post, but afterwards I researched the numbers to back it up. I did most of this research when I commented on Israpundit a month ago, so the numbers are 1 month old. Jonathan Tilove mentioned (correctly) in his article in Cleveland Plain Dealer:
www.cleveland.com/election/.../index.ssf
"Mark Levin suggested that Americans have a blinkered view of the world, that in recent decades the Judeo-Christian West has more blood on its hands than Islam, and that the Israeli-Palestine conflict ought to be seen as "a clash of two equally valid worldviews, a clash of two rights, instead of as a clash between right vs. wrong."
Here's the data.
20th Century
Judaeo-Christians win the kill totals big in the 20th century, beating Islam hands-down. Think of Stalin (~20 million), WWI (20 million), WWII (72 million) which were mostly intra-Judaeo-Christian kills - this 'group' killed well over 50% of "its own" among the roughly 200 million deaths from war in the 20th century. Once again, the question arises - are the adherents of Islam really more violent than Judaeo-Christian adherents? The empirical evidence doesn't support it. Quite the opposite.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass..._estimates
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass...s_estimate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geno...in_history
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worl...casualties
http://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/World_ War_I_casualties
In 1950, the global population was 2.5 billion, North America and Europe had a combined 720 million people, or close to 25% of the world population then.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
We have had a disproportionate share of the kills in that century, over 50%. It would follow that Muslims have killed fewer people as a % of their population compared to the "Western group."
Islam vs the West Since 2000:
We have killed more Muslim civilians from collateral damage of our bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel combined than all the Israelis and Americans (including combatants) who have been killed since 2000 by Muslims attacking Western targets. The math follows.
Casualties on the "Muslim side":
Direct collateral damage in Afghanistan from US bombs ~5,000 by end of 2002
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world...1740538.stm
This is a 2002 number - the likely number exceeds 10,000:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_...present%29
Iraq invasion: 1,033,000 dead, with about 93,000 from aerial bombardment. "48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_...casualties (9% of the 1,033,000 is about 93,000 dying from just aerial bombardment)
Palestinians killed by Israelis minus Pals who were subjects of a targeted killing: 4,719 - 230 = 4,489. (the furthest this number can go down to is 2168, if we eliminate those taking part in "hostilities" which I guess can include rock-throwing. I think the number should be kept at 4,719 since on the Israeli side we are including soldiers.)
www.btselem.org/English/St...ualties.asp
Casualties on the "Judaeo-Christian side":
Israeli soldiers and civilians killed by Pals: 1,044 (soldiers are included because it was hard to discern the number for the Pals)
www.btselem.org/English/St...ualties.asp
Sept 11 kills by AQ: 2,998 dead
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sept...01_attacks
2003 attacks on Istanbul synagogues: 57 dead
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003...l_bombings
2004 Madrid bombings: 191 dead
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_M...n_bombings
2005 London bombings: 52 dead en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Ju...n_bombings
Let's say we also include the Western soldiers killed according to Wikipedia:
Coalition deaths in Afghanistan: 723
Coalition deaths in Iraq: 4,350
I'm sure I've left out a few - feel free to add them in and adjust. I'm sure you can quibble with some of the classifications, but -
TOTALS
Number of Muslims killed by direct Western action (mostly aerial bombardment) since 2000: Over 100,000 dead.
Number of Christians and Jews killed by action of Muslims since 2000: Between 9,000 and 10,000. (includes all Western combatants as well)
That's 10 X. Who has caused more terror? Is Islam really more violent a religion than ours?
Killing of innocent civilians is terrifying, and should count as "terrorism" whether or not initiated by a state. It is sudden, and kills noncombatants. I believe this same analysis, taken back 25 or 50 years will show the same thing.
How much can we blame religion?
Does this mean Christianity or Judaism is more violent, and has less regard for human life? I'm not sure.
I don't think our religions are violent by nature, but I think our devaluation of human life (that is not like our own) is evident from the data. The same way many people in the West (openly or in their minds) tie any violence by Muslim extremists to problems with Islamic culture, religion, ideology and the Koran (instead of political grievances) - this data might lead an independent observer to argue that the Bible and the Torah, and the Judaeo-Christian culture they spawn is responsible for all the innocent deaths caused by Western violence.
Given their similar roots, I don't see any of the three Abrahamic religions as being any more peaceful or murderous than each other. I'm no scholar of comparative religion, but I think that's a reasonable position unless someone shows me research indicating otherwise.
Each religious text - whether it's the Bible, Torah and Koran - are complex enough to have passages that appear to be peaceful or vengeful. The Bible has "turn the other cheek" as well as an "eye for an eye." None of these tomes is internally consistent. And they were composed in an era and culture that doesn't look like ours. People who have political or other axes to grind will always be able to find passages in each of these texts to make their point. I could say that "eye for an eye" is the justification why I gouged out the eye of a doctor who messed up my Lasik surgery. Or some other act of revenge that is illegal under law. Does that mean my religion is a violent one, because I've found a passage in there to justify it?
my.barackobama.com/page/com...marklevin
Mark
----- Original Message ----
From: prometheuspan panprometheus <prometheuspan@hotmail.com>
To: The IR (International Relations) Forum <TheIRInternationalRelationsForum@groups.barackobama.com>
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 8:49:13 PM
Subject: [TheIRInternationalRelationsForum] RE: Is Islam the Most Violent Religion? - Bodycounts in Modern Hi
Thanks to who ever wrote this and who posted it.
I have often made this same argument, tho in not nearly this detail.
The real truth is that all three of these religions are pretty much in the same boat, but Christians kill a whole lot more than Jews or Islam Combined.
I have repeatedly found myself addressing the fake smear that obama was a muslim with the question;
"If he was, so what?"
This seems to be lost on most of them.
The simple fact is that the smear is racist, and assumes racist polarization of the electorate in order to work. That millions of people are then
willing to take up those torches and run with them is perhaps the most sickening and disgusting part of being an American right now.
The very idea that by calling obama a muslim we (they) are insulting him to be beneath the office of president is itself a gross politicization of
racist sentiment, which has been fostered in a thousand ways for purposes of the Iraq war.
I also point out that we lost the war in Iraq the first week. By continuing our anti muslim rhetoric, by going after oil wells and not protecting
human targets or even going after weapons depots, we proved to the Iraqis that we were not liberators, but oil raiders. That we were not Humanitarians,
but greed driven evil jerks. Thanks to Cheney and Bush and Halliburton, their ideas of the west in a negative light were amplified a thousand times
with direct evidence which we provided.
IF obama WAS Muslim, that would be only an awesome selling point to his capacity to broker a real live middle east peace process.
and yet, what do we get? A lie repeated a billion times to smear obama via racist religious sentiment.
The republican party is disintegrating, and they like to blame just the bush admin. The truth is that every aspect of the republican party is simply evil.
Any analysis of what they have done to our country bill after bill or law after law shows that they have simply been the party of, for, and by the corporations,
and against the people. They are a pack of liars and propagandists, and this is just one prime example of how they use the very worst in humanity to
divide and conquer the people and split them against each other. The republican party is hopefully doomed, and in the long run, these kinds of smears
are just more coffin nails.
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 19:29:09 -0400
To: TheIRInternationalRelationsForum@groups.barackobama.com
From: mlevin49@yahoo.com
Subject: [TheIRInternationalRelationsForum] Is Islam the Most Violent Religion? - Bodycounts in Modern History
Often, I come across the assumption that Islam is a more violent religion. It's an assumption that colors our international relations, late night comedy and national discourse. It has percolated into our worldview, and embedded itself there. This is a very dangerous misconception we are laboring under.
The suggestion that Obama being pegged as a former, current or hidden Muslim is a kiss of death for his electability (it is) is rarely taken to the next step - as to why "Muslim" is a dirty word to us. What does that say about us as Americans? Are we really the best country in the world if we cannot imagine an actual Muslim American winning a nomination or the Presidency? Aren't we supposed to be tolerant and not racist? Why don't we raise our hackles the same way when we see digs at Arabs, Mormons and Muslims as we do when blacks, Hispanics or Jewish people are targeted?
Militant Islam is seen by us as a bigger threat to human life than Western military power. Islam is seen as the violent religion. The quantitative hard evidence is completely in the other direction.
The killing/infliction of pain by the West and Islamist militants is different in style and expense, except at the final moments - explosives ripping through human flesh of innocent men, women and children. The first stages are radically different; one is a very expensive high-tech process which often involves pressing a button and never having to see who you are killing far away, the other is a low-tech, often suicidal effort with close proximity to the victim. Both achieve the same result, of terror, and of targeted and collateral death. Our collateral (innocent) bodycounts on them, far exceed the bodycount they exact on us. But somehow, all the technology and wizardry that precedes that last moment of shrapnel through flesh, somehow gives us a thicker veneer of being civilized than some suicide attacker or beheader. Why? Aren't we achieving the same grisly result?
Our analyses, pundits and media usually ignore this uncomfortable fact because it doesn't make us look moral, or civilized.
Our media (like that of every nation) reports empathetically on the suffering of Western victims, while largely ignoring the video coverage (if it exists) of what happens on the other side or letting us hear their side. Sometimes that video footage is never available - the poor don't have camcorders.
We have no reason to feel morally superior just because women have fewer rights in some Muslim countries - we do a better job in actually killing them.
Yes, we have much more blood on our hands than "they" do. I claimed this in an earlier post, but afterwards I researched the numbers to back it up. I did most of this research when I commented on Israpundit a month ago, so the numbers are 1 month old. Jonathan Tilove mentioned (correctly) in his article in Cleveland Plain Dealer:
www.cleveland.com/election/.../index.ssf
"Mark Levin suggested that Americans have a blinkered view of the world, that in recent decades the Judeo-Christian West has more blood on its hands than Islam, and that the Israeli-Palestine conflict ought to be seen as "a clash of two equally valid worldviews, a clash of two rights, instead of as a clash between right vs. wrong."
Here's the data.
20th Century
Judaeo-Christians win the kill totals big in the 20th century, beating Islam hands-down. Think of Stalin (~20 million), WWI (20 million), WWII (72 million) which were mostly intra-Judaeo-Christian kills - this 'group' killed well over 50% of "its own" among the roughly 200 million deaths from war in the 20th century. Once again, the question arises - are the adherents of Islam really more violent than Judaeo-Christian adherents? The empirical evidence doesn't support it. Quite the opposite.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass..._estimates
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass...s_estimate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geno...in_history
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worl...casualties
http://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/World_ War_I_casualties
In 1950, the global population was 2.5 billion, North America and Europe had a combined 720 million people, or close to 25% of the world population then.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
We have had a disproportionate share of the kills in that century, over 50%. It would follow that Muslims have killed fewer people as a % of their population compared to the "Western group."
Islam vs the West Since 2000:
We have killed more Muslim civilians from collateral damage of our bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel combined than all the Israelis and Americans (including combatants) who have been killed since 2000 by Muslims attacking Western targets. The math follows.
Casualties on the "Muslim side":
Direct collateral damage in Afghanistan from US bombs ~5,000 by end of 2002
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world...1740538.stm
This is a 2002 number - the likely number exceeds 10,000:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_...present%29
Iraq invasion: 1,033,000 dead, with about 93,000 from aerial bombardment. "48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_...casualties (9% of the 1,033,000 is about 93,000 dying from just aerial bombardment)
Palestinians killed by Israelis minus Pals who were subjects of a targeted killing: 4,719 - 230 = 4,489. (the furthest this number can go down to is 2168, if we eliminate those taking part in "hostilities" which I guess can include rock-throwing. I think the number should be kept at 4,719 since on the Israeli side we are including soldiers.)
www.btselem.org/English/St...ualties.asp
Casualties on the "Judaeo-Christian side":
Israeli soldiers and civilians killed by Pals: 1,044 (soldiers are included because it was hard to discern the number for the Pals)
www.btselem.org/English/St...ualties.asp
Sept 11 kills by AQ: 2,998 dead
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sept...01_attacks
2003 attacks on Istanbul synagogues: 57 dead
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003...l_bombings
2004 Madrid bombings: 191 dead
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_M...n_bombings
2005 London bombings: 52 dead en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Ju...n_bombings
Let's say we also include the Western soldiers killed according to Wikipedia:
Coalition deaths in Afghanistan: 723
Coalition deaths in Iraq: 4,350
I'm sure I've left out a few - feel free to add them in and adjust. I'm sure you can quibble with some of the classifications, but -
TOTALS
Number of Muslims killed by direct Western action (mostly aerial bombardment) since 2000: Over 100,000 dead.
Number of Christians and Jews killed by action of Muslims since 2000: Between 9,000 and 10,000. (includes all Western combatants as well)
That's 10 X. Who has caused more terror? Is Islam really more violent a religion than ours?
Killing of innocent civilians is terrifying, and should count as "terrorism" whether or not initiated by a state. It is sudden, and kills noncombatants. I believe this same analysis, taken back 25 or 50 years will show the same thing.
How much can we blame religion?
Does this mean Christianity or Judaism is more violent, and has less regard for human life? I'm not sure.
I don't think our religions are violent by nature, but I think our devaluation of human life (that is not like our own) is evident from the data. The same way many people in the West (openly or in their minds) tie any violence by Muslim extremists to problems with Islamic culture, religion, ideology and the Koran (instead of political grievances) - this data might lead an independent observer to argue that the Bible and the Torah, and the Judaeo-Christian culture they spawn is responsible for all the innocent deaths caused by Western violence.
Given their similar roots, I don't see any of the three Abrahamic religions as being any more peaceful or murderous than each other. I'm no scholar of comparative religion, but I think that's a reasonable position unless someone shows me research indicating otherwise.
Each religious text - whether it's the Bible, Torah and Koran - are complex enough to have passages that appear to be peaceful or vengeful. The Bible has "turn the other cheek" as well as an "eye for an eye." None of these tomes is internally consistent. And they were composed in an era and culture that doesn't look like ours. People who have political or other axes to grind will always be able to find passages in each of these texts to make their point. I could say that "eye for an eye" is the justification why I gouged out the eye of a doctor who messed up my Lasik surgery. Or some other act of revenge that is illegal under law. Does that mean my religion is a violent one, because I've found a passage in there to justify it?
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