The Parthians Are At It Again!

[Favonius Cornelius]

Phil, who avoids issues? Who is taking it with apathy and lethargy?

[P.Clodius]

As far as I am aware the suspects are of Pakistani origin - no connection with ancient or modern Parthia.

 

Phil

Parthia

 

 

And your point is?

 

Wikipedia isn't worth didddly-squat as a reference, either, thank you.

 

The map shown hardly makes Pakistan central to ancient Pathia either.

 

Phil

 

[Discussion of the bomb-plot removed on second thought!!]

Phil

More Parthia

[Spurius]

The major areas of modern Pakistan was in Sattagydia-Gandara and Parikania in the Parthian Empire. These roughly correspond to Bulchistan, Punjab, N.W.F.P and the Northern Areas. Sattagydia and Gandara have a long history of Persian influence, as noted by this early inscription by Darius. The people and area were noted on maps and such, but there was nothing that set them apart from other peoples in the Parthian Empire. Except for the fact that multiple religions existed peaceably in the areas. (What a change over the millennia.)

 

The dominate ethnic group of the area, the Pashtuns, have been in the area for at least that long too. They may have been a mingling of Aryans and local peoples and possibly be the

[P.Clodius]

Thus the reference to the Parthian Empire is a long stretch, but not when you try to dress up a post heading for a Roman Board.

Exactly...So chillout people

[Moonlapse]

In my opinion, there simply comes a point when one has to make a judgement, Moonlapse.

I agree.

I think one of the great failings of the modern era is this fence sitting - this waiting to see. Indecisiveness if you like. It's an infectious, mesmeric "manana" syndrome that smacks to me of cynicism (in some cases) apathy and lethargy.

I don't see the pressing need for me to make a decision based on one day of released information. Perhaps if my decision were critical, then certainly decisiveness would be critical. Of course if I was in that position, I'd probably have much more information. I try not to just tune in to my favorite news and just accept their word for it. To me, thats the equivalent of putting your mind to sleep.

Of course, one should not jump to conclusions, but we are gifted with common sense and should use it. Otherwise Doomsday will come while we are still rehearsing!! (And while my analogy may be religious I am not talking Christianity here.)

Perhaps my 'trust no one' sense is flawed common sense, but even while newly released articles shed a little light on the situation, I still find a lack of the fundamental details that most of it is based on. People are too accustomed to accepting a basic explanation without being given specific references.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6081001654.html

A mentor of mine once said we need three "G"s in life: Grace; Greek and gumption. (Gumption is a synonym for commonsense or "nous" in the UK.

 

You can, he said, attain Grace and learn Greek - but if you do not have gumption, heaven help you!!

 

Well. I think in cases such as the bomb plot just revealed, we need to use our gumption, not sit on the fence avoiding the issues.

 

But you must do as you please.

 

Phil

June in Miami - the 7 men detained by the FBI were not al Qaeda. The leader, Narseal Batiste, gathered this group based on the Moorish Science Temple ideology; a mix of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. These men were from the ghetto area of Miami, Liberty City. Batiste began talking to an arabic-descent shop owner, an FBI informant, about creating a government based on this ideology in the U.S., indicating that he thought al Qaeda could help. The FBI informant introduced Batiste to another FBI informant posing as an al Qaeda operative. Batiste wanted to blow up the Sears Tower, the 'operative' tried to convince the group to target five FBI offices. At least one of the seven has indicated that at this point he was afraid and did not want to go through with any plans. The FBI informant supplied Batiste with a video camera to go film targets with. All 7 are now being idicted on charges of conspiring with al Qaeda to bomb FBI buildings and the Sears Tower. They did not have the means to do so.

 

Do you see how much influence the FBI had in this scenario? If you doubt this, I urge you by all means, to look into it.

 

This is why I 'sit on the fence' and 'avoid the issues' until I'm comfortable with the amount of information I have.

[Antiochus of Seleucia]

I question everything in the media and criticize it. Yet, what am I supposed to think of the Islamic Culture? For my whole life I have heard of them killing people. I want to be so biased and call everyone in the Middle East crazy because all they do is kill each other. Only until recently I discovered why they hate the U.S. so much. One, for supporting Isreal (which I already knew), and two, for meddling with democracy in the Middle East back in 1951- Deposing a democracy to appoint a dictator to get oil. Yet they [terrorists] are still killing innocents who want nothing to do with those Islamic fanatics who kill off a grudge and actions done 50 years ago. Yet we vote for our representatives therefore what they do supposedly represents our desired 'action.'

 

*sigh*

Edited August 12, 2006 by Antiochus of Seleucia

[Moonlapse]

In re-reading this thread, I think I may be misunderstood in a few ways. I don't mean to come across as anti-american or as trying to justify terrorism. I'm not trying to push conspiracy theories or whatnot. In years past, I never had a thorough understanding of the world around me. I relied on 'talking heads', since it spared me the extremely daunting task of sorting through the garbage heap of media to find my own thoughts.

 

Well, thats what I've been trying to do for myself since then. In my personal experience of trying to differentiate the subtle slants from the real information contained in any one piece of media, regardless of its source, I've come to the personal conclusion that everything has a much much larger context that can be nearly impossible to grasp if you don't really dig for it.

 

In all, I would suppose that the normal person only spends a very short amount of time each day aquainting themselves with current events. Our busy lives only leave room for extremely condensed, out of context news blurbs or a few minutes of subjective banter on some talk radio station.

 

What I'm advocating here is that people spend a little bit more time paying attention some of these important things in a whole context, finding diversified sources, and trying to answer specific questions FOR THEMSELVES.