Why they hate us II ( How many Muslims has the US killed in the past 30 years )

[Hunguri]

Why they hate us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

 

 

Tom Friedman had an especially fatuous column in Sunday's New York Times, which is saying something given his well-established capacity for smug self-assurance. According to Friedman, the big challenge we face in the Arab and Islamic world is "the Narrative" -- his patronizing term for Muslim views about America's supposedly negative role in the region. If Muslims weren't so irrational, he thinks, they would recognize that "U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny." He concedes that we made a few mistakes here and there (such as at Abu Ghraib), but the real problem is all those anti-American fairy tales that Muslims tell each other to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.

 

I heard a different take on this subject at a recent conference on U.S. relations with the Islamic world. In addition to hearing a diverse set of views from different Islamic countries, one of the other participants (a prominent English journalist) put it quite simply. "If the United States wants to improve its image in the Islamic world," he said, "it should stop killing Muslims."

 

Now I don't think the issue is quite that simple, but the comment got me thinking: How many Muslims has the United States killed in the past thirty years, and how many Americans have been killed by Muslims? Coming up with a precise answer to this question is probably impossible, but it is also not necessary, because the rough numbers are so clearly lopsided.

 

Here's my back-of-the-envelope analysis, based on estimates deliberately chosen to favor the United States. Specifically, I have taken the low estimates of Muslim fatalities, along with much more reliable figures for U.S. deaths.

 

 

 

To repeat: I have deliberately selected "low-end" estimates for Muslim fatalities, so these figures present the "best case" for the United States. Even so, the United States has killed nearly 30 Muslims for every American lost. The real ratio is probably much higher, and a reasonable upper bound for Muslim fatalities (based mostly on higher estimates of "excess deaths" in Iraq due to the sanctions regime and the post-2003 occupation) is well over one million, equivalent to over 100 Muslim fatalities for every American lost.

 

Figures like these should be used with caution, of course, and several obvious caveats apply. To begin with, the United States is not solely responsible for some of those fatalities, most notably in the case of the "excess deaths" attributable to the U.N. sanctions regime against Iraq. Saddam Hussein clearly deserves much of the blame for these "excess deaths," insofar as he could have complied with Security Council resolutions and gotten the sanctions lifted or used the "oil for food" problem properly. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the United States (and the other SC members) knew that keeping the sanctions in place would cause tens of thousands of innocent people to die and we went ahead anyway.

 

Similarly, the United States is not solely to blame for the sectarian violence that engulfed Iraq after the 2003 invasion. U.S. forces killed many Iraqis, to be sure, but plenty of Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis, and foreign infiltrators were pulling triggers and planting bombs too. Yet it is still the case that the United States invaded a country that had not attacked us, dismantled its regime, and took hardly any precautions to prevent the (predictable) outbreak of violence. Having uncapped the volcano, we are hardly blameless, and that goes for pundits like Friedman who enthusiastically endorsed the original invasion.

 

Third, the fact that people died as a result of certain U.S. actions does not by itself mean that those policy decisions were wrong. I'm a realist, and I accept the unfortunate fact that international politics is a rough business and sometimes innocent people die as a result of actions that may in fact be justifiable. For example, I don't think it was wrong to expel Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 or to topple the Taliban in 2001. Nor do I think it was wrong to try to catch Bin Laden -- even though people died in the attempt -- and I would support similar efforts to capture him today even if it placed more people at risk. In other words, a full assessment of U.S. policy would have to weigh these regrettable costs against the alleged benefits to the United States itself or the international community as a whole.

 

Yet if you really want to know "why they hate us," the numbers presented above cannot be ignored. Even if we view these figures with skepticism and discount the numbers a lot, the fact remains that the United States has killed a very large number of Arab or Muslim individuals over the past three decades. Even though we had just cause and the right intentions in some cases (as in the first Gulf War), our actions were indefensible (maybe even criminal) in others.

 

It is also striking to observe that virtually all of the Muslim deaths were the direct or indirect consequence of official U.S. government policy. By contrast, most of the Americans killed by Muslims were the victims of non-state terrorist groups such as al Qaeda or the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans should also bear in mind that the figures reported above omit the Arabs and Muslims killed by Israel in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Given our generous and unconditional support for Israel's policy towards the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular, Muslims rightly hold us partly responsible for those victims too.

 

Contrary to what Friedman thinks, our real problem isn't a fictitious Muslim "narrative" about America's role in the region; it is mostly the actual things we have been doing in recent years. To say that in no way justifies anti-American terrorism or absolves other societies of responsibility for their own mistakes or misdeeds. But the self-righteousness on display in Friedman's op-ed isn't just simplistic; it is actively harmful. Why? Because whitewashing our own misconduct makes it harder for Americans to figure out why their country is so unpopular and makes us less likely to consider different (and more effective) approaches.

 

Some degree of anti-Americanism may reflect ideology, distorted history, or a foreign government's attempt to shift blame onto others (a practice that all governments indulge in), but a lot of it is the inevitable result of policies that the American people have supported in the past. When you kill tens of thousands of people in other countries -- and sometimes for no good reason -- you shouldn't be surprised when people in those countries are enraged by this behavior and interested in revenge. After all, how did we react after September 11?

[Peacenow]

What about the Chinese or the Russians. Why is nothing said about them. More arabs have killed muslims than any other people and that is the fact.

 

You no doubt live in the west. Taking their money as they feed and clothe you. Look at yourself in the mirror.

[Complicated]

^^ The angry 'black man' with the suit speaks again.

 

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You hate Christians but you love their benefit money.

 

 

Posts: 747 |

From: Milan, Italy. I work I don't get benefits.

|

Something tells me that you DO get benefits. Keep on denying it, that will make it go away

[Chocolate and Honey]

What about the Chinese or the Russians. Why is nothing said about them. More arabs have killed muslims than any other people and that is the fact.

 

You no doubt live in the west. Taking their money as they feed and clothe you. Look at yourself in the mirror.

Horta waxaan u malaynayaa kan yari inuu unstable yahay, yacni dhanka fahanka :confused: . Whats this obsession with food stamps, welfare and Christians? We could be discussing Why they disqualified Pluto as a planet and he'll rush in with "you're questioning the Christians but you love their money" .

[Peacenow]

Originally posted by Complicated:

^^ The angry 'black man' with the suit speaks again.

 

quote:

---

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You hate Christians but you love their benefit money.

 

 

Posts: 747 |

From: Milan, Italy. I work I don't get benefits. |

Something tells me that you DO get benefits. Keep on denying it, that will make it go away

I don't depend on anything but myself. I'm proud to be one of the few immigrants here of any country, that goes to work every morning and contribute. Many Italians know me.

 

Secondly, if i did take their benefits. I would not be hypocrite for doing so. For I, don't criticise their civilisation. Like many of you do. You live in the West. They feed, house and clothe and then you bring up children who are more radical and non-productive than your generation while you defraud their state.

 

You would be more credible if you done this in Saudi Arabia. But of course you would never dare to live there.

[Thankful]

That's so sweet, the Italians give you a pat on the head and you feel like you are accepted and that they like you right. You then turn around and start doing their dirty work and insult other immigrants. Believe me when you are not around they will be saying completely different things about you.

 

I am pretty sure this thread mentioned the U.S, and not the "west". It is talking about how many were killed by the U.S. Not all countries participated in these conficts, like the current Iraq fighting that has killed hundreds of thousands.

 

The west needs us just as much as we need them. Don't think they are doing us any favors, just like we are not doing them any. Their population is dwindling and they need more people. They messed up Africa through so many things from slavery to colonialism. They came to us, before we came to them!

 

Stop thinking you are special because you have a job and Italians pat you on the head and say good work boy!!

[Peacenow]

Originally posted by ThankfulSP:

That's so sweet, the Italians give you a pat on the head and you feel like you are accepted and that they like you right. You then turn around and start doing their dirty work and insult other immigrants. Believe me when you are not around they will be saying completely different things about you.

 

I am pretty sure this thread mentioned the U.S, and not the "west". It is talking about how many were killed by the U.S. Not all countries participated in these conficts, like the current Iraq fighting that has killed hundreds of thousands.

 

The west needs us just as much as we need them. Don't think they are doing us any favors, just like we are not doing them any. Their population is dwindling and they need more people. They messed up Africa through so many things from slavery to colonialism. They came to us, before we came to them!

 

Stop thinking you are special because you have a job and Italians pat you on the head and say good work boy!!

They can think of me whatever they want. I still have a decent job and a roof over my head in a foreign country. For that I'm thankful.

 

The West don't need you. They need, doctors, investors and sciencits. I read a British think-tank report that said 80% of Somalis are on Benefits. You are simply draining their state.

 

You comfort yourself in half truth, lies and the cloak of religion.

Your country is broken and your society ruined. Might it be better if we acted lawfully, modestly and do hard-work when we are in foreign lands?

[Thankful]

They can think of me whatever they want. I still have a decent job and a roof over my head in a foreign country. For that I'm thankful.

 

The West don't need you. They need, doctors, investors and sciencits. I read a British think-tank report that said 80% of Somalis are on Benefits. You are simply draining their state.

 

You comfort yourself in half truth, lies and the cloak of religion.

Your country is broken and your society ruined. Might it be better if we acted lawfully, modestly and do hard-work when we are in foreign lands?

 

That is where you are completely and utterly WRONG. The most important requirement Western nations need from us is to come and do jobs that they are unwilling to do themselves. Sure they need people from the professions that you mentioned, but their society won't survive without us and they know it! I agree our country is broke, and many other Africa countries, a result of COLONIALISM. Who pitted tribe against tribe and destroyed our natural resources.

 

In terms of your report that 80% of Somalis were on benefits, show me proof.

 

Like I said, western countries need us just as much as we need them!

 

Malaysia is realizing how important we are!

 

Ny Times

 

Businesses Struggle With Malaysia's Restrictions on Foreign Workers Sign in to Recommend

Published: August 31, 2009

 

KUALA LUMPUR — It is lunchtime at the Wangsa Ukay restaurant in suburban Kuala Lumpur, and regulars are coming in for local favorites like roti canai, chicken curry and tea tarik, the sweet, milky drink that is ubiquitous across Malaysia

 

Rahman Roslan

Salim, a Bangladeshi migrant worker, serving a customer during a busy lunch hour at the Wangsa Ukay restaurant in August.

 

 

 

Rahman Roslan

Muneandy Nalepan, the owner of Wangsa Ukay restaurant, in his office in Kuala Lumpur.

The owner, Muneandy Nalepan, has time to stop and talk for now, but when peak times hit on weekends, he and his wife must pitch in to help clear tables.

 

He used to have a staff of 120 — almost all foreigners — working in his five restaurants across the city. But after the government made it more difficult for businesses to hire workers from abroad, he is down to 80 because he has been unable to replace the 40 employees who had to return home after the maximum work period of five years.

 

Unable to find Malaysians willing to work as cooks, waiters or dishwashers, he is awaiting approval to employ more foreigners. But if he cannot get more workers soon, he says, he may close one of his outlets. Mr. Muneandy, an 18-year veteran of the industry, is even considering other business ventures.

 

“To run a restaurant, it’s becoming impossible,” he said.

 

It is not just restaurateurs complaining. Many business owners, from furniture producers to rubber glove manufacturers, say a labor shortage is harming productivity.

 

In January, Malaysia banned the hiring of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors after a government report predicted that 45,000 people could be laid off during the Lunar New Year at the end of that month, the New Straits Times reported.

 

“There is no valid reason to bring in foreign workers at this time,” Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar told the paper.

 

The ban was backed by labor groups. The Malaysian Trades Union Congress proposed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers last October.

 

“Because of the global economic downturn, we were worried about the impact on jobs for Malaysians as well as foreigners,” said Raja Sekaran Govindasamy, the group’s secretary general. “We don’t want workers to be brought in and abandoned, because that then causes hardship.”

 

In 2008, there were an estimated 2.2 million foreigners — mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Myanmar and Vietnam — working legally in Malaysia, a nation of 28 million. Some reports suggest the country was home to another one million illegal workers. By March this year, the number of foreigners with work permits had fallen to 1.9 million, according to Shamsuddin Bardan, executive director of the Malaysian Federation of Employers.

 

“About 300,000 permits were not renewed, and people were sent back,” he said.

 

Malaysia recorded 31,392 layoffs from January through July, and the country’s unemployment rate rose to 4 percent in the first quarter of this year, the latest period for which figures are available. That was up from 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

 

Closing the doors to foreign workers is hardly a uniquely Malaysian response to the global economic downturn. Taiwan, South Korea and Australia also announced plans this year to reduce the number of new foreign worker visas, according to the International Labor Organization.

 

But in Malaysia, the cutbacks are not simply a result of the economic crisis. The government has said it wants to reduce the number of foreign workers to 1.5 million by 2015. Some believe weaning the country off its dependency on foreign workers is crucial to increasing local wages.

 

The average monthly wage in the manufacturing sector has risen to between 650 and 700 ringgit, or $185 to $200, in the past three months, up from 450 ringgit, the national news agency Bernama reported in August.

 

Mr. Raja said foreign workers often accepted lower wages than Malaysians. The country has no minimum wage. Typically, foreigners are brought in by a business offering a job, he said, or by an outsourcing company that promises them work.

 

Mr. Shamsuddin said that companies could still apply to recruit foreigners but that the process had become more difficult.

 

For example, he said that since April 1, employers have had to advertise vacancies locally for two months, up from one month, before they could apply to recruit foreigners. And employers must now pay an annual levy — as much as 1,800 ringgit — for any new foreigners they employ, he said; the fee used to be paid by workers. Mr. Shamsuddin said the government had abandoned plans to double the levy after the federation complained.

 

Dominant Semiconductor, a light bulb manufacturer with factories in Malaysia and China, is struggling to fill about 1,000 vacancies. Its chairman, Goh Nan Kioh, said the company was allowed to employ one foreigner for every local worker but could not find enough Malaysians to help increase its total work force. If the labor shortage continued, he said, the company might consider moving more of its labor-intensive operations to China.

 

The rubber glove industry is also struggling to find enough workers to fill orders, which have surged with the spread of swine flu.

 

“It’s a pity that right now when we are facing a big jump in demand, we are not getting enough workers,” said K.M. Lee, managing director of Top Glove and president of the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers’ Association.

 

The employers interviewed said they were trying to reduce their dependency on foreign workers by exploring ways to automate and to increase pay to attract locals. However, they say that foreign workers remain crucial for now because they cannot find enough locals willing to take what some call the “three D jobs” — dangerous, difficult and dirty.

 

“If you are going to get a Malaysian to come to work, it’s very difficult,” said Mr. Muneandy, the restaurant owner. “They feel that by working in a restaurant, their pride is in question. They feel that Malaysians have already come to a stage where they are above certain other Asian countries.”

 

Mohamed Ariff, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, blames the country’s dependence on foreign labor on the decision to “open the flood gates” to migrant workers in the late 1980s, first in the plantation sector, then in manufacturing.

 

Mr. Ariff said that in the early 1990s, when wages in the manufacturing sector were rising, factories had considered introducing labor-saving technology but that many had shelved those plans when the government let them employ more foreign workers.

 

“The technology transfer suffered enormously,” he said. “Malaysia was trapped into an unskilled, labor-intensive economy.”

 

Malaysia should give up its labor-intensive operations to countries with lower wages, like China, he said, and concentrate on more highly skilled work like research and development, financial and health care services.

 

Some workers’ rights groups, though, are concerned that new restrictions on foreign laborers may result in more people migrating to countries before they obtain a valid work permit. That can leave them more vulnerable to exploitation, the International Labor Organization said.

 

Figures released by the government last week showed that the economy had emerged from recession in the second quarter. Mr. Raja, the labor leader, said that although job losses were easing, the unions believed the freeze on foreign workers should continue. If there is a need for more workers in the coming months, he said, companies should be able to extend the visas of foreign workers already in the country.

 

Sunil Nemdang, a 21-year-old Nepalese man, came to Malaysia in May on the belief that an agent had a job for him. He was given a work permit and told that he would work as a security guard. However, when he arrived, there was no job.

 

With the agent still holding his passport, Mr. Sunil is sleeping on the floor of a Nepalese restaurant alongside his three cousins, who made the trip with him, while he tries to get his documents back.

 

Despite the harsh introduction to life in Malaysia, he has not given up on his dream of earning money to send home to his parents, poor farmers living in a village in eastern Nepal. “If I get a good job, I want to work here for two or three years,” he said.

[ElPunto]

Ultimately - Muslims need to get their own houses in order. This they treated us worse contest is pointless. None of us would be here if Somalia was a half decent place.

 

And yes Friedman is a smug, self-assured and wrong on most things concerning Muslims.

[NASSIR]

Thomas Friedman is a delusional columnist, and at times he bursts irrational concepts of globalization, that is one thing I can tell. And that is because he believes in the maintenance of western supremacy over the rest of the world, in which a small group's control over the global resources and Finance is essential in maintaining systemic stability, growth and progress

 

 

Thanks Hunguri, great one indeed.

[Allamagan]

Originally posted by peacenow:

..Like many of you do. You live in the West. They feed, house and clothe and then you bring up children who are more radical and non-productive than your generation while you defraud their state.

Dude, let me tell you one thing, you are not somali, nor black so spare us your fvkeng rants towards arabs, muslims in general and now somalis. Everyone get fed up with your stup1dity and senseless posts, it was first about gay rights, then anti-arabs and Islam and somehow you managed get away with them all and now you started making mockery of us, somalis. You think we are not aware of all these dirty jobs you undertaking in Italy and that you make a living by licking sh1t? dude, you always in disguise with fake "somalinimo" as part of your hidden agenda. Anyone can read all of his posts and see the common denominator was his hatred to wards muslims and nowadays somalis.