FBI's "Islam 101"

[Red Commissar]

I saw this article (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/fbi-islam-101-guide/) come up, discussing a powerpoint copy acquired by the ACLU that was given to FBI agents when they were to begin doing their work in counterterrorism and "interrogation". Some of the odd things include

-Muslims participate in a ritual circumcision
-More than 9,000 of them are in the U.S. military
-All Muslims participate in their religion in such a way to transform their country into " 7th-century Arabian ways"

They also do a lot of overlap between Arabs and Muslims to the point they use the term interchangeably apparently. At the end there's a list of "Recommended Reading", which contains, among other things, the book "The Arab Mind", a shoddy attempt at explaining how all Arabs (lol) think, having operate in some mass hive mind or something. The author of that book was also listed by the Norweigan shooter as forming his beliefs too.

The powerpoint itself is here (http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2011/07/Cultural-Interviewing-Interrogation-PowerPoint1.pdf).

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I'm sure it's bigoted, overly simplistic and one-sided etc, but ritual circumcision is a part of the religion like with the Jewish religion. What's wrong with calling it a ritual? Is ritual now an offensive term or something?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khitan_%28circumcision%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_milah

Just like Christians have a wine and bread ritual, Jews and Muslims have a circumcision ritual.

It seems like an odd point to bring up next to actual legitimate complaints about the class.

[Obs]

I'm sure it's bigoted, overly simplistic and one-sided etc, but ritual circumcision is a part of the religion like with the Jewish religion. What's wrong with calling it a ritual? Is ritual now an offensive term or something?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khitan_%28circumcision%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_milah

Just like Christians have a wine and bread ritual, Jews and Muslims have a circumcision ritual.

It seems like an odd point to bring up next to actual legitimate complaints about the class.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it (afaik, at least) is completely irrelevant to the what the FBI does.

[Nox]

" 7th-century Arabian ways"

Wasn't the Muslim world far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technological advancement and science at those times?

[OhYesIdid]

Wasn't the Muslim world far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technological advancement and science at those times?

Quite. In fact, that's why the muslim revolution in Iran excited Foucault so much.

[Red Commissar]

I'm sure it's bigoted, overly simplistic and one-sided etc, but ritual circumcision is a part of the religion like with the Jewish religion. What's wrong with calling it a ritual? Is ritual now an offensive term or something?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khitan_%28circumcision%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_milah

Just like Christians have a wine and bread ritual, Jews and Muslims have a circumcision ritual.

It seems like an odd point to bring up next to actual legitimate complaints about the class.

Muslims have circumcision but it's not done in a "ritual" type setting where an Imam is brought in to do it and the person is formally conducted in as a member of that religion. If you look at the powerpoint the picture they use is something in Bulgaria where a young boy has been taken and it was done in a cultish-type setting- which doesn't really happen. Lot of Muslims who live in America are fine with the circumcision done in a hospital and not by a religious authority or someone of the same religion. It's not too central to the faith, AFAIK.

[Crux]

Whereas the popularity of male circumcision on children among WASPs in the U.S is completly secular and has nothing to do with a puritanical heritage.

[Le Socialiste]

In addition to “Transforms country’s culture into 7th century Arabian ways”, there was “No separation between church and state” (funny, because we often struggle with that ourselves), “Hard for Westerners to understand” (I think the powerpoint illustrates this quite well), and “Regulates most aspects of life” (again, another thing plenty of Christians and non-Islamic faiths would love to do). Quite honestly, these could apply to just about any major religion (as well as minor ones). Ridiculous.


Wasn't the Muslim world far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technological advancement and science at those times?

Yep. While Christian Europe was wallowing in the "Dark Ages", the Muslim world was making huge strides in science, technology, and mathematics. Funny how we forget these contributions. :rolleyes:

[CommunityBeliever]

The anti-Islam sentiment is clearly there to justify the imperialist wars necessary to maintain capitalism. Well Muslims aren't perfect people this has gone to the level of absolute ridiculousness, now-a-days like every movie is phrased as (muslim terrorists vs glorious imperialists) if some major event happens like the one we just had in Norway, they always assume it is a Muslim.

[Pretty Flaco]

I'm circumcised.

[Madslatter]

the “Arabic mind” is “swayed more by words than ideas and more by ideas than facts.”

should read


The "Right Wing mind" is "swayed more by words than ideas and more by ideas than facts

[Jose Gracchus]

This reminds me of Chomsky's description of intelligence agencies are in a sense being less effective than they might be, by their own standards, due to the fact by their own nature they are always viciously racist and excessively ideological. Thus, they are hardly the image of dispassionate scientific effectiveness they prefer to imagine themselves as.