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> A new Houthi slogan appeared after the group's re-designation as a terrorist organisation: "America is the mother of terrorism" set on a red background. Well
by fwip 23d ago
> A new Houthi slogan appeared after the group's re-designation as a terrorist organisation: "America is the mother of terrorism" set on a red background.
Well, they're not wrong.
- inglor_cz 22d agoThey are wrong. Muhammad's terror campaigns predate the US by more than a thousand years.
- bigyabai 22d ago"is the mother", not "was the mother" If you take this all the way back to ancient history, nobody will be happy with the examples we drum up.
- inglor_cz 22d agoI agree with you, but that also means that no one can claim to be a parent of terrorism. It is just one long series of bastards from the eve of civilization up.
- fwip 21d agoCalling Muhammad a terrorist is really a special amount of Islamophobia.
- inglor_cz 21d agoFreedom of religion is also freedom from religion and a right to be disgusted by particular religious figures. No one owes even an ounce of respect to any bearded prophet out there, this is literally the essence of a liberal society: the very absence of blasphemy (that you recast as "Islamophobia", same thing under a different name, only sounds more modern) as a concept. Muhammad had between 400 and 900 POWs of the Banu Quraish tribe beheaded. Not calling this terrorism means twisting the very meaning of terrorism into pretzels.
- fwip 21d agoExecuting captured combatants was not atypical for the time period. I doubt you'll find many historians calling the Massacre at Verden terrorism, for instance, despite executing 4500 prisoners.
- inglor_cz 19d agoThe fact that it used to be somewhat more typical (though not everyday occurrence) does not make it less of terrorism. That definition does not depend on frequency of an event. It depends on the use of terror to achieve political means, and a mass beheading definitely tells the vanquished people that from now they'd rather obey their new overlords. It is a matter of linguistic taste if we use such word in medieval context, but the principle is the same as in modern terrorism, and jihadists of the 21st century explicitly say that they are motivated and inspired by Muhammad's acts like this one.