(06-24-2025, 10:13 PM)FCD Wrote: ...
Having lived among a Muslim culture in a Muslim country for several years myself, I have no misgivings or fantasies about how some of these people operate in real life. The more secular and extremist they become, the more savage they become. I don't harbor any utopian fantasies about what some people 'say'. I've seen them operate in real life, in actual practice. I've had to sit across negotiating tables from them. I've seen the lies first hand, and there's no fantasy or 3rd-hand wives tales there, just pure personal, in person, experience.
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Have you ever sat in on "negotiations" between Moslem factions? It's a sight to behold - "Brothers" this and "Brothers" that, all manner of pretty, flowery language and speeches trying to appear conciliatory, but the subtext is ALWAYS "My way or the graveyard". In order to broker any agreements, each side has to be able to return to their own people and appear to have thumped the shit out of the other side, diplomatically of course.
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“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger.”
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake