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posted by janrinok on Friday February 06 2015, @11:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the depends-which-side-you-are-on dept.

Erik Wemple writes at the Washington Post that Fox News recently took the controversial step of posting a horrific 22-minute video online that shows Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned to death warning internet users that the presentation features "extremely graphic video." "After careful consideration, we decided that giving readers of FoxNews.com the option to see for themselves the barbarity of ISIS outweighed legitimate concerns about the graphic nature of the video," said Fox executive John Moody. "Online users can choose to view or not view this disturbing content."

But Fox's decision drew condemnation from some terrorism experts. "[Fox News] are literally — literally — working for al-Qaida and ISIS's media arm," said Malcolm Nance. "They might as well start sending them royalty checks." YouTube removed a link to the video a few hours after it was posted, and a spokesperson for Facebook told the Guardian that if anyone posted the video to the social networking site it would be taken down. CNN explained that it wouldn't surface any of the disturbing images because they were gruesome and constituted propaganda that the network didn't want to distribute. "Does posting this video advance the aims of this terror group or hinder its progress by laying bare its depravity?" writes Wemple. "Islamic State leaders may indeed delight in the distribution of the video — which could be helpful in converting extremists to its cause — but they may be mis-calibrating its impact. If the terrorists expected to intimidate the world with their display of barbarity, they may be disappointed with the reaction of Jordan, which is vowing "strong, earth-shaking and decisive" retaliation."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:16AM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:16AM (#142081) Journal

    If they didn't have all that oil money they wouldn't be able to get away with such authoritarianism.

    Nonsense.
    Iran is a pauper state by comparison.
    So were the Taliban when they ran Afghanistan.
    Public executions and stoning to death were common, and still are.

    This isn't a problem caused by Money.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:23AM (#142085)

    Hhhm. So counter-examples disprove the linkage. Funny how that works.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:56AM

    by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Saturday February 07 2015, @01:56AM (#142098) Journal

    Women are doctors, surgeons, bank presidents, university professors, mechanical engineers and - yes - venture capitalists in Iran. This is not tokenism - 20 percent of surgeons are female.

    Tehran is also a skiing capital - but Hey! Go ahead and take the brainwashing. It was free!

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    • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday February 07 2015, @08:22PM

      by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 07 2015, @08:22PM (#142290) Journal

      But for obvious reasons none of those women are women who were stoned to death. And they're all still owned by someone, they are ultimately property, anything else is unislamic.

      And for the same reason none of them are gay.

      There's not much reason to “defend” Iran, you can ski in Saudi Arabia (or one of their puppet states) as well. In both places you can also drown in a burka on the beach if you want to try swimming.

      Learn from Syriza and stop propagating outdated trench warfare along dead borders based on who associated with who during the cold war. Syriza is in coalition with the new right in Greece: Independent Greeks (ANEL) [wikipedia.org]. Both UKIP and Front Nationale have praised Syriza for standing up for Greece. Greece has to stop the zergling rush though, otherwise nothing will work (and the same goes for everyone else across Europe).

      Meanwhile in Rotherdam the tally of victims keeps increasing while “people”/media pretend it isn't symptomatic.

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      • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:02PM

        by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:02PM (#142299) Journal

        I think you know little about Iran and Iranians. "Property"? There are more religious views of women in lower classes - true. But Iranian women vote and run in campaigns. Iranian women have property rights independent of their male relatives or married status.

        Iranians will always be Iranian-Indo-Aryan people first, above other cultural and ideological trends. It's thousands of years old...

        --
        You're betting on the pantomime horse...
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:08PM

        by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:08PM (#142301) Journal

        Saudi women are stoned for driving. Iranian women lead the nation's Formula 1 circuit... :-)

        500 pages of things that would have Saudis imprisoned - or Hasidim, for that matter!
        http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=351718 [skyscrapercity.com]

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Saturday February 07 2015, @02:41AM

    by Arik (4543) on Saturday February 07 2015, @02:41AM (#142116) Journal
    The Iranians are clearly less oppressive if you are Jewish or Shia, perhaps if you are Sunni you might be happier in Saudi. To some degree these things are relative. However beheading is currently practiced by only two entities - Saudi and daesh, and this is no coïncidence. Virtually all of the negative stereotypes we have about Muslims in this country have their root in one school of Islam specifically - the Wahabbi. And that school is the school sponsored by the Saudis. Even just 20 years ago they had very little influence outside the kingdom. The numerous interventions, the wars and destruction, have weakened or destroyed moderate groups and put the extremists in control. Why would anyone believe more of the same will somehow fix that?

    --
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    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ayn Anonymous on Saturday February 07 2015, @07:07AM

      by Ayn Anonymous (5012) on Saturday February 07 2015, @07:07AM (#142161)

      "...if you are Sunni..." Are you kidding me ?
      Only the stupid, week and cowardly believe in a higher being

    • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday February 07 2015, @04:47PM

      by fritsd (4586) on Saturday February 07 2015, @04:47PM (#142236) Journal

      IANAM, so read the following with a grain of salt, but what I find really shocking is the *deafening silence* from, say, Al Azhar [wikipedia.org], or Qom [wikipedia.org], about all this violence by IS in the name of Islam.

      Why is there not a "fatwa" from a bunch of highly respected islamic scholars (Sunni or Shia or both at the same time), denouncing the things IS does as "un-islamic"?

      It makes sense that people living in strict islamic countries don't listen to complaints from the US or Western Europe, but why don't their own religious leaders stand up and speak out?

      It could be that I just don't read about it because I can only read 2 letters of Arabic (a and l) but AFAIK it doesn't get reported in, say, de Volkskrant or BBC News. It would be important world news. Maybe even Fox News would mention it, if it happened.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Saturday February 07 2015, @05:17PM

        by Arik (4543) on Saturday February 07 2015, @05:17PM (#142242) Journal
        "It could be that I just don't read about it because I can only read 2 letters of Arabic (a and l) but AFAIK it doesn't get reported in, say, de Volkskrant or BBC News. It would be important world news. Maybe even Fox News would mention it, if it happened."

        It happens all the time, the press dont seem very interested.

        Here's an example: http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com/

        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 07 2015, @06:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 07 2015, @06:52PM (#142261)

          Here's what the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar thinks:
          http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/122176/Egypt/Politics-/AlAzhar-head-says-IS-murderers-deserve-to-be-kille.aspx [ahram.org.eg]

          The head of Al-Azhar, Egypt's pre-eminent Sunni Islamic institute, has strongly condemned the killing of a Jordanian pilot by the "terrorist, devilish" Islamic State (IS).
          Ahmed El-Tayeb said: "The Quran mandates that the perpetrators of this cowardly act, which goes against God's word, deserve to be killed, or crucified, or have their legs and arms amputated." He also called on the international community to fight against the "barbaric, savagery" of IS that is against the teachings of Allah and his prophet Mohamed

          When I stand back a bit the differences between ISIS and Al-Azhar get a bit blurry ;). They start to look like two sides of the same coin. After all don't the ISIS say similar sort of things?

          In my country there are very many Muslims who support the ISIS. And even more who support serving Islam by fighting and killing others and consider it good or even encouraged. It is actually easier for Muslims to justify these actions and other violent actions using Islam (hence that statement by the Grand Imam), compared to say Buddhists (those in Sri Lanka and Myanmar try to justify their actions, but it's pretty obvious they're stretching things a _lot_).

          But all Muslims should ask themselves: "When Muslims kill each other in the name/defence of Islam, and all sides (as usual) call their dead Shahid (Martyrs), will God really be pleased with all of them, regard them as Shahid and reward them accordingly? If you kill someone how sure are you that God will regard you as Shahid? What if you are the bad guy and the person you just killed is now a Shahid?

          • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday February 07 2015, @08:35PM

            by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 07 2015, @08:35PM (#142292) Journal

            Beware the relativism because all of islam is part of the same face of the same coin. On the other side of the coin is the US government and the global totalitarian system of surveillance and manipulation. Along the surface of the rim of the coin are all the “politically correct”, the media, the apologists, the suicidal pacifists, everyone who hasn't caught on, and so on.

            You can flip that coin as many times as you wish but you can't win, not even when it stands on edge.

            --
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        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fritsd on Saturday February 07 2015, @08:51PM

          by fritsd (4586) on Saturday February 07 2015, @08:51PM (#142295) Journal

          Thanks for the informative link Arik. Blimey but that epistle is difficult to read. I guess IANAMufti :-)

          Your link is much more informative than any video of horrible acts perpetrated by IS.

          It is not clear to me who wrote it. Is that on purpose?

          To people surfing to that site: you have to click on the little yellow arrows to turn the pages. It uses Adobe Flash. It is long and boring so brew some tea or coffee. It might make you sick to your stomach reading about IS.

          I liked paragraph 4 "Difference of opinion" about "severity", and paragraph 7 "killing emissaries" about the journalists, which is very clearly written.

          About par. 11: are Magians the same as Zoroastrians?

          Paragraph 18 about mutilation has a very prophetic comment, I think:

          "You have provided ample ammunition for all those who want to call Islam barbaric with your broadcasting of barbaric acts which you pretend are for the sake of Islam. You have given the world a stick with which to beat Islam whereas in reality Islam is completely innocent of these acts and prohibits them."

          I am reminded of a certain blonde politician from the Netherlands who is in full agreement with that statement :-/ .

          par. 21: hmph. Old-fashioned. And what is the issue with wrinkly Ethiopians anyway?

          Also the arrogance of these people: par. 22 about the caliphate:

          "who gave you authority over the ummah? Was it your group? If this is the case, then a group of no more than several thousand has appointed itself the ruler of over a billion and a half Muslims. This attitude is based upon a corrupt circular logic that says: ‘Only we are Muslims, and we decide who the caliph is, we have chosen one and so whoever does not accept our caliph is not a Muslim.’ In this case, a caliph is nothing more than the leader of a certain group that declares more than 99% of Muslims non-Muslim."

          At the end of the letter I notice that some of the signatories are from Nigeria and Chad, I bet they're applying the same text to Boko Haram and come to the same conclusion about those criminals.

          • (Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:19PM

            by Arik (4543) on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:19PM (#142306) Journal
            "It is not clear to me who wrote it. Is that on purpose?"

            I believe the first 11 signatories claim joint authorship, they are the ones pictured if you scroll down the page a bit, starting with Sheikh bin Bayyah of Abu Dhabi and going through Prof. Din Syamsuddin of Indonesia.

            "To people surfing to that site: you have to click on the little yellow arrows to turn the pages. It uses Adobe Flash. It is long and boring so brew some tea or coffee. It might make you sick to your stomach reading about IS."

            Actually easier. Disable flash. Scroll down the page to where it says 'download translations' and click English (or whatever you prefer.)

            "About par. 11: are Magians the same as Zoroastrians?"

            Yes, another name for the same thing.

            "At the end of the letter I notice that some of the signatories are from Nigeria and Chad, I bet they're applying the same text to Boko Haram and come to the same conclusion about those criminals."

            Yes. Boko Haram is a big worry there, and they make a point of killing any legitimate religious scholars they find btw.

            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?