Rupert Murdoch on Muslims and Saudi Arabia

[the Kelly Gang]

from :
www.crikey.com.au

comments made by Rupert Murdoch in Los Angeles yesterday.

Speaking at the Milken Institute's annual Global Conference on topic of "Creating Prosperity and Stability Amid Ever-Accelerating Change," Rupert commented, "There is going to be real trouble coming in Europe, I think."

Why? Because European countries including France and Germany have done a very poor job of assimilating their large Muslim immigrant populations, leaving them more vunerable to terrorist attack than the US.

"They have major centres of problems that are just boiling up. Paris is surrounded by vast blocks of tens of thousands of apartments - all Muslim, all no-go areas for police and totally lawless," he said.

The Sun King ( Murdoch) is also concerned about the political situation in Saudi Arabia. He told the conference: "I think the most outstanding thing to worry about, if we are talking about urgency, is in the Middle East and it is with Saudi Arabia."

"Saudi Arabia is really the swing. If there was a revolution there it would happen overnight and you might see oil go from $US40 to $US80 or $US90 (a barrel) and that wouldn't simply affect us. It would bring China and Japan and all those countries into a pretty terrible state."

It is obvious that Rupert is acutely aware of the importance of oil to the global economy. Last February, he told Max Walsh in The Bulletin that the best thing to come out of the war in Iraq would be $US20 barrel for oil. "That's bigger than any tax cut in any country," he said.

Rupert seems to have no problem associating with former criminals if this latest appearance at the Milken Institute is any guide. Michael Milkin was jailed for securities fraud in the early 1990s but continued to advise Rupert whilst banned in the mid-to-late 1990s and had to surrender tens of millions in News Corp fees to US authorities when he was caught out.

[buddy22600]

1. murdoch is a bastid

[leesa]

2. Rupert is a member in good standing of the Bush Crime Family, why would

he have a problem consorting with criminals?

[Tim4319]

3. Conservatives, for the most part are criminals.

Get it? CON-servatives!

[Veggie Meathead]

4. There are two acceptable forms of prejudices left.One is that

against gays; the second is the one against Muslims.Mr.Murdoch's
News Corp. is a true practitioner of both.When he tars all Muslims in europe as terrorists, someone should ask him how he and his rightwing cronies would react if the same epithets were hurled against Jews or Blacks?

[theboss]

5. He's not really wrong on this

France does have a huge Muslim population that is not assimilated.

And revolution in Saudi Arabia would play hell on the world economy.

[jobycom]

6. He's wrong in the arrogant assumption

that the Muslim population ahs to be turned into a French population in order to not be a problem. I can think of another country that made that segregationist mistake.

As for Saudi Arabia, glad that moron finally figured it out. Many of us were saying that an invasion of Iraq would be a mistake because of the effect it could have an Saudi Arabia, and thus on our oil prices. I remember arguing that if the resistance in Iraq ever should signs of winning against the US, it would embolden Saudi Arabia radicals to rebel. Well, they are showing backbone, and now even a halfwit like Murdoch gets it. Of course, he doesn't get that it's partially his fault...

[theboss]

8. Not turned into a French population

But should be assimilated to the French population. I don't think it's good for any country to have a large immigrant population with no connection to the language and customs of the country. There needs to be a give and take. The Muslim populations in Europe are largely disconnected at the moment.

[jobycom]

15. There needs to be an acceptance

of human beings regardless of culture. Culture is made by humans, not the other way around. If there are that many Muslims who are not assimilated (use your best Borg voice), then France has a different culture than they want to have, and the problem is not that the Muslims are not assimiliated, it is that the French do not accept the culture and language of a large portion of their neighbors. The French population is the one disconnected.

It's not a problem with the Muslims, it's a problem with the French. It's the same problem America has struggled with.

[theboss]

19. Yes and No

It's a two-way street. But Immigrants have a responsibility as well. I'm certainly not arguing "love it or leave it," but when you emigrate to a new country, I believe you have an obligation to it.

By your argument, if Muslims want to create a state in France where women don't have the right to vote, we should accept that as their culture.

[jobycom]

22. No, that's not an extension of my argument

France's laws are as they are, and as long as they do not discriminate based on religion, race, gender, etc, (although they often do), immigrants have the duty to obey them. Which means that Muslims, or any other grouping of immigrants, have the right to vote, whether they use it or not. If Muslim women don't vote, that is their right, too. As long as France gives them the right.

France's role is to give them the same rights that other citizens (or if they aren't citizens, that other immigrants) have. They have no obligation to force anyone to use their rights, either as individuals or as a culture.

And when you emmigrate to another country, you have the moral obligation to follow its rules, as long as those rules don't violate your human rights. There ends your requirements. You don't have any moral obligation to become like them, to like them, to preserve their culture, or any other racist thing. And they have the obligation to make you welcome once they've accepted you.

[ugarte]

7. Go to any major U.S. city

You will see parts of town that are 'not assimilated'...

[theboss]

10. I live in a major US city

And it's not the same as in France. We are not doing nearly as good a job as we should, but there is not the same level of disconnect between Spanish-speakers and even Arabic-speakers here as there is in Europe.

[Bombtrack]

12. Yeah but most of those people don't subscribe to a religion

that's being driven by an ideology of hostility towards non subscribers to that religion.

[jobycom]

17. You don't think large numbers of them are Christian?

Hmm, I would assume that in most US cities, large numbers of the "non-assimilated" people are Christian. I guess I'll trust your word, though.

[Veggie Meathead]

16. Has anyone considered the possibility that the reason

the Muslims in many European countries have not been "assmilated"
is the intense prejudice against them in the first place? Even second and third generation Muslims, born and raised in France or Germany,
are considered foreigners despite their fluency in German or French.Many are denied the right to citizenship despite having lived in the country for generations. For the French or the Germans to cry about "unassimilated" populations is in itself a form of prejudice in my opinion.Having alienated these people for generations, they are now blaming the victims.

[jobycom]

18. Bingo!

Glad to see some rational, liberal thought. That's why I come to DU.

[Bombtrack]

9. He's actually right about the Muslims in France and Germany

Those governments are beginning to realize that that they do have a problem with such a surging population of unassimilated people who largley have the potential for pockets of hostility and that is the main reason for the Headscarve ban.

[theboss]

11. That ban was based on fear, which is very dangerous

Assimiltating immigrants to a native culture is a long and difficult task, and France is now panicking and over-reacting.

[Bombtrack]

13. It's dangerous to NOT fear the threat of militant Muslims

Or to pretend that Islam isn't currently being driven more and more by Jihadists

[theboss]

14. I agree, but the reaction is wrongheaded

France does have a problem with a lot of angry, unassimilated Muslims in their country. But the solution is not to tell them to abandon all their traditions, when traditions is all they really have at this point. That's just going to create more anger and resentment.

I mean, I'm a happy, middle class Christian, and if someone told me to take off the little gold cross of the chain I wear, I'm throwing a brick at someone.

[jobycom]

21. it's not dangerous, it's intelligent

Good grief, the anger towards America and the west has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with oppression and predatory economic practices that force large groups of people across the world to give up their nations' wealth to the exploiters without receiving anything it return. America is using the oil from the Middle East to keep our economy soaring while depressing the economies of the nations who are supplying the oil. We have supressed economic reform in the Middle East, we have overthrown their attempts at democracy, we have started wars where we funded both sides to keep them going long beyond their natural end, we have encouraged invasions and then invaded the nations we encouraged to invade, we have supplied weapons for the purpose of genocide, we have supported tyrants and then when we tired of them we have slaughtered hundreds of thousands to take the tyrants out.

Religion has nothing to do with it. If they were Christian, if they were Buddhist, if they worshipped Squiggy the Wonder Worm, they would still hate us. The only role religion plays is on our part, where our unscrupulous leaders use OUR religion as a rallying cry against THEIRS.

FOR THE RECORD, the Qur'an forbis violence against Christians living in Muslim lands, and does not call for the forced conversion of anyone. Islam venerates Jesus and the Pentateuch, and honors other "People of the Book," meaning people with a revealed religion. Through most of their history, Islamic nations were more tolerant of Christianity and Judaism than either Christians or Jews were to them. The problem has nothing to do with religion, it is all about politics and tyranny. Religion is just a rallying cry. And there are large numbers of Muslims who believe it is being misused in that way.

The danger to our nation is that if we don't wake up and begin to understand the source of the problem, we will be trodden under the feet of change, as the Austria-Hungarian Empire was at the beginning of the last century. That's where we stand now-- on outdated, unjustified concepts of empire and our role in the world.

And Islam isn't being driven more and more by anyone. It's not a nation, it's not a country, it's not a race, it's not any measurable entity that can be driven, any more than Christianity or nihilism can be driven. What's being driven are specific political entities based on a common enemy rather than on a region. Jihad is a spiritual word meaning a struggle to overcome temptation. It is not a word that implies war or terrorism, except in the uniformed minds of Bush and his cult.

[Bombtrack]

23. Bullshit. Islam is being driven by a whacked out, anti-human nature

zealotry that is so obvious to everyone who isn't consumed by anti-American fringe propaganda.

The US and the west have no interest in and have no part in promoting the fact that they treat women like freaking cattle and are pent up with vitriolic dogma. Do the madrassas not exist? Are they not "that bad"? Do they not train millions of children non stop day after day a narrow religiosity that one way or another leaves these people believing that dying while murdering infedels will get you into heaven and that everyone who does not except their way of thinking is going to hell. Again, I am not talking about what the Q'ran says or what you say it says that is flowery and good. You know what, the Vatican says alot of things too, no sex before marriage, no meat on such and such a day, no booze on Sunday etc etc,but do most American Catholics abide by all that crap? Hell no.

It is about religion and you are nothing but an apoligist. I'm not going to even ask how you would prosecute the war on terror or Al Queida or if you think that is fundementally unjust despite the fact that they are a segment of the Jihadist world that have demonstrated their personally religiously justified will to murder.

And another bit of proof about how idiotic your relativist argument about any maimed+molested-by-America populace would target us is, is Viet-fucking-Nam. 2 MILLION of them died in that war as a direct result of our conflict between the Communists. Another half million or so in Cambodia. Wouldn't they then be churning out homicide/suicide/genocide-bombers and various terrorist groups against us? Well, they aren't. Cause they aren't muslim and they aren't fundementalist. Indonesia however, IS Muslim, and it is churning out terrorists, who happen to have been educated in Saud-financed Maddrassas.

[jobycom]

26. Hatred

What difference do you see between your hatred here and the hatred you claim "they" show towards non-Muslims? What is your answer to the problems you see? Given that you bring up the war, and imply that you support at least the war in Afghanistan, I suppose your answer is the same as every other hate-filled racist group throughout history, from the Nazis to al-Queda. Kill them all, let God sort it out. Would that be a fair summary? (Certainly no less fair than your summary of my view). If not, what is your solution? Only kill a lot of them? Kill their leaders, convert them all?

How other nations train their children is not our business. They don't like the way we train ours, either. How women in oppressive cultures are treated is our business, but that oppression is hardly limited to, or based on, Islam. There are plenty of Hindu, Judaic and even Christian women who are treated as woefully. The difference is in our solution to the problem. We try more peaceful methods of convincing other peoples to provide human rights. We justify genocide towards Muslims-- kill them for their own good, they will thank us one day. The same argument was used to justify the slaughter of 20 million Native Americans.

Islam is not the problem. It is not even a problem. The problem is what we have done and are doing to other people, and how they are reacting to it. Regardless of their religion.

And you ask but don't ask what my solution to al-Queda would have been? Take them out, just as Clinton tried to do. Arrest them, stop them, increase our intelligence to fend them off, and WHEN THEY HAVE COMMITTED AN ACTUAL CRIME, take them out. My solution would not be to invade and enslave one of the most violated nations on earth simply because a criminal element lived within their midst. That would make no more sense nor be any more right than blowing up a school full of children because a bankrobber hid in it. That's morally what we have done there.

The overwhelming majority of the people we have slaughtered and are slaughtering had nothing to do with anything that has ever hurt our nation. Ever. They may or may not have hated us, but hating us is not a crime.

I'll bet they hate us now, though.

[Bombtrack]

28. What is this genocide that "we justify" You continue to skirt the issue

of other parts of the civilized world that were exploited and manipulated and hurt as a result of the globalist policies of BOTH the USA/West and the Soviets towards less civilized parts of the world. You ignored Vietnam, which litterally MILLIONS of innocents were killed. But the Vietnamese, who are secular, are not in a Jihad against us. What about Greece, in which for really no discernable skewable Western interest we helped install a fascist regime. But the Greeks, who are Orthodox Christian, do not seek vengeance against us.

The answer is secularization of the middle east through various economic and intelligence policies. Although I doubt you'll bother, this website has a variety of material showing just how mislead you are about Islam.

http://www.secularislam.org/separation/isisislam.htm

[jobycom]

31. Actually, Vietnam is a pretty good parallel.

You are under some mistaken impression that Muslims want to convert us all to Islam. Maybe in the grand scheme of things that is their goal, just as ours is to convert the world to democracy and capitalism, and Baptists believe they should convert the world to Baptistism. The Soviets wanted to convert the world to communism. Every group believes theirs is the best solution, including ours.

Viet Nam is a good parallel to what is happening now. We were convinced that if the Soviets spread communism to Viet Nam, it would take over our nation eventually. We believed they wanted to conquer us and convert us, so we justified mass slaughter. Now we are convinced by a lying madman that "Muslims" want to convert us all, and destroy our freedoms, so we are going to get them first. We are like the paranoid man of the world, holed up in a basement somewhere, thinking every sound he hears is a conspiracy against us. Only we have very powerful weapons to follow up on our paranoia. Yes, there was some justification for believing it about al-Queda, and about the Soviets, but not about Viet Nam, or about Iraq or Afghanistan, or the emmigrants in France. We are the same nation that believed that if blacks were integrated with whites rather than being lynched rather regularly that black men would rape all of our white women.

Viet Nam then, and most of the Muslim world now, have one thing in common-- they want us to go away and stop slaughtering them. Stop oppressing them, too. We are there, they fight us back. In their own countries. Their is no grand state of Islam trying to land on our shores and convert us. They just want us to stop trying to convert them, and to stop unbderpaying for their oil, and to stop propping up puppet dictators in their lands so they can live free-- by their own terms.

As for your interest in secularizing the Middle East:

We aren't interested in secularizing the Middle East. Iraq was secular. We threw out their secular government, making a religious government more likely.

Iran in the fifties had a secular government, a democracy-- we overthrew it.

Our interests are not in creating secular governments, they are in creating colonies.

And even if our interests were in creating democracies, or secular governments, what gives us any right to do that? How is forcing democracy on a people against their will democratic?

I'm glad to have talked to you. I don't think I truly believed that people who could put two words together in a row could still be that racist, that brainwashed, after all the lessons we learned in the 20th century. But now I see we haven't changed, we've just moved on to our next victims. It's been educational. Later days.

[jobycom]

24. So do you see a difference between banning certain clothing

and forcing people to wear certain clothing? Because to me, the headscarf ban doesn't seem morally different than forcing Jews to wear yellow stars. True, one is trying to create differences, one is trying to eliminate the appearance of differences, but both are singling out individuals based on their heritage and requiring them to dress as the government wants them. Both are segregationist, since the headsscarf ban for all practical purposes only applies to Muslims.

At the end of WWII everyone said "We will not forget." We have forgotten, and we are doing it again, to another semitic group of people. How many Muslims will we allow to be slaughtered before we realize the atrocity this time?

Remember the Charlie Chaplin movie with Robert Downey? In the scene were the Nazis are promoting their anti-semitism, they try to put Chaplin on the spot. When he refuses to accept their racist views towards Jews, they try to pressure and threaten him, finally asking, "Are you a Jew?" The audience understands the trap. He's not, so if he says no, he implies support for the Nazis, simply because his answer sounds defensive. His answer was brilliant. He says "That is an honor I do not have."

Knowing what the Nazis became, in that situation, which side of the room would you have wanted to be on-- the Nazi side, the side of those who were afraid to stand out, or the minority of one who stood up? Because that's where this nation and the western world is heading right now. Our concentration camps are still small, but after the Supreme Court rules that they are okay, which should happen soon, they will grow. That's where we are. Where are you (meaning everyone)?

[Bombtrack]

27. You clearly haven't educated yourself about the issue because

it doesn't just apply to Muslims. The law bans religious apparel in Public institutions and therefor it affects jews who where yarmulkes and Christians who where crucifix's.

Sorry I haven't seen whatever movie you were talking about but I am pretty sure that the civilised world keeping the Muslims in check isn't tantamount to "slaughtering Muslims". More muslims have been slaughtered by Muslims than than by any other people recently, mostly for stupid dogmatic bullshit like adultury and disputes over what cave Muhammed crapped in.

[jobycom]

29. Au contraire, mon frere.

I am quite aware what the ban included. It was, however, not written to ban yarmulkes or crucifixes, as you know.

And your concept of "keeping the Muslims in check" is one that I'm sure supporters of Hitler used about the Jews, and that Columbus used about the Indians, and that Andrew Jackson used about the Cherokee. It is just as empty. We've killed close to half a million Muslims in the past 15 years, between the two Bush's, and we've created conditions that have led to the deaths of over a million more. And that's not likely to stop under Bush anytime soon, with his destruction of the infrastructure of Iraq going into summer in the dessert.

How many people have to die before you call it a slaughter? 3000? 400,000? Give me a number.

And your statement that "more Muslims have been slaughtered by Muslims than by any other people" proves my point. Islam is not a monolithic culture. When Iraq and Iran fought, that was a case of two different nations warring, not Islam fighting Islam. So you've demonstrated my point that you can't lump all Muslims together. Or, if you want to go the other route, more Christians have killed other Christians than any other group. Most murders of Christians in America are by Christians. Timothy McVeigh was a Christian. Since Christians have been responsible for more deaths of Christians, why don't we declare war on all Christian people?

Are attitudes and stereotypes and wars against Muslim nations and Muslim people is nothing but pure racism. No different than any other genocidal nation in history. We had a real enemy on 9-11. That enemy, the brother of Bush's first business partner, is still free, but we've slaughtered hundreds of thousands of others because they obeyed the same book. And some people, sadly, seem to think that's okay.

[Bombtrack]

32. The gulf war was STARTED by Saddam. The US and UN fought him

out of Kuwait which he illegally attempted to annex and many muslims died as a result of our defense of International law. But you consider that "a slaughter".

It is not a stereotype to point out and SEE the clear cheuvenist, racist, hostile atmosphere that the muslim world lives in and just how messed up it makes people. ANY dogma that deprives people of natural interaction with the opposite sex and allows people to believe that only the acceptance of one strain of one religion and the strict obedience towards the rediculous routines and requirements will get you into heaven, is ipso facto destructive.

Any society who's governments almost without exception rapes and fails it's people and scapegoats Israel and villifies jews and now Christians to keep there power and control people is at odds with the progress of the civil world.

But no, you live in a world of unlimited coincidence. The state of Islam has nothing to do with it.

[jobycom]

34. Iraq got our permission first.

Look it up. The troops were amassing on the border of Kuwait for days. Bush had been asked about it, in fact, and publicly said it wasn't our business. Hussein asked our ambassador to Iraq if we would care if he invaded "our southern providence," as he had called Kuwait earlier in that same conversation, and she said no, America would not oppose that.

After the invasion, Bush lied to put troops in Saudi Arabia, claiming satelites showed Iraqi troops amassing for an attack on SA. It wasn't true, it has now been confirmed by our own Pentagon-- there were no troops, Bush lied. Our Congress put sanctions on Iraq that were supposed to take a year to work, Bush invaded within six months. He had testimony before Congress to convince them to allow him to invade. Much of that testimony was false, just as with this Iraqi invasion. Even Bush's closest advisors have admitted so. The vote was very close, and without those lies, our Congress would not have invaded Iraq.

Congressperson Henry B Gonzales, head of the Banking Committee, introduced legislation calling for the impeachment of HW Bush. The next morning, Bush began bombing, and the motion was buried.

Bush swore when he recaptured Kuwait-- a very brutal dictatorship making Hussein's look meek-- that he would turn Kuwait into a democracy. He didn't, he simply turned it back over to the Kuwaiti royal family, who then went on a bloody purge of the many people who had preferred Hussein to them.

This, BTW, was the act that turned Usama bin Laden from our paid allie into our enemy. Before that, he believed America really wanted to help liberate the Middle East. Afterwards, he knew better.

So Iraq proves my point, not yours.

As for the clear Chauvinist, racist, hostile environment most Muslims live in, I don't support that, or like it, and have made no statement to that effect. To the contrary, I have said that the oppression suffered in this regions is horrible. But claiming that killing them will somehow liberate them is doublespeak nonsense. And blaming their living conditions on Islam is pure idiocy. The Middle East is a hodgepodge of brutal dictatorships who create intolerable conditions for their citizens. The majority of those citizens believe that Islam is the way out of their condition, and believe that America is what is entrapping them in their condition. That don't see Islam as the cause of those conditions. And frankly, they are right. Our efforts have created these series of dictatorships. For people to blame that on Islam is disengenuous, at best. It's racism at worst.

[MallRat]

20. $20/barrel for oil?

"Last February, he told Max Walsh in The Bulletin that the best thing to come out of the war in Iraq would be $US20 barrel for oil."

Rupert might want to consider getting out of the prognostication business.

:mad:

-MR

[tinanator]

25. thats not the business he is in, step back and take another look

He is in the business of LYING! Anyone who fell for that $20 a barrel bribe deserves what Murdoch and Bushcorp actually had in mind. The most basic tenets of economics should tell anyone what further monopolization will do to prices. And high oil prices are definitely on the Bushcorp agenda. This sounds more like a business proposition or plan to reshuffle Saudi dictators and raise the stakes.

[the Kelly Gang]

30. I heard him give an interview in Aust 3 weeks ago..he said George Bush is

a shoo-in..done great things for the country and the US economy is going gangbusters..everything hunky dory..which is true !!..(if you are a billionaire)

[newyawker99]

33. the Kelly Gang

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