Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Blocks Messenger In Five Embargoed Countries
Spooky McSpookster writes "Microsoft has turned off its Windows Live Messenger service for five countries: Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. Users in these countries trying to log in get the following error: '810003c1: We were unable to sign you in to the .NET Messenger Service.' Why now, since this flies in the face of the Obama administration's softening stance on Cuba? This isn't the first time the US trade embargo has had questionable outcomes. US-based Syrian political activist George Ajjan created a web site promoting democracy in Syria, only to find GoDaddy blocked anyone inside Syria from seeing it. The article argues, 'Messenger is a medium for communication, and the citizens of these countries should not be punished from such a basic tool because the US has problems with their governments' policies.' What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication?"
Without reading the article, I would assume that M$ makes advertising money with its IM. Because of that, it might be construed that it is doing business with countries that it has no business doing business. (that was really an excuse for first post...)
What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication?
About the same as the wisdom of US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication. The ones are about as likely as the others, to end up with a strange feeling on their backsides.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
They don't do what is good for "people" in general and they don't claim to do so.
This is true of every big corporation. It's probably true of any group where liability for actions are taken away.
Simple. They were using the "block country" wizard 4 years ago to do this change, but whomever was doing the blocking, accidentally pressed cancel on the last sheet. Until now, no-one noticed that those countries weren't blocked.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
The slashdot article writes: "What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication?"
It's not so much that it's a US company, but closed source product.
Microsoft activation has disabled plenty of US citizens who upgraded some components of their hardware that WGA didn't like.
And even if you buy from other companies you're not safe from US sabotage in closed source software. Remember the Soviet Oil Pipeline software bought from a Canadian firm - which had CIA-placed trojans in it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage
If you care about your software infrastructure - make sure you have the ability to fix (or hire independent consultants to fix) your software no matter what your vendor does - whether it's something innocent like going bankrupt, or deliberately breaking your infrastructure.
I'm not a lover or hater of MS, but I know when a article is biased.
Right after the writer says "it's not clear that Microsoft was ordered to make this change, so what made the company decide that US-embargoed countries aren't worthy of Messenger? Why now?".
If it's not clear, why assume they chose? Why say they aren't worthy... clearly MS thought they were for some time. MS gets no good from blocking it, they just want users. Maybe their lawyers had been arguing with the government and finally there was a decision.
Noone knows... which means don't conclude anything. More info needed.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication?
What does this say about the wisdom of anyone relying on a single provider for their business or communication? The idea of a second source isn't exactly new. If you adopt a technology from a single provider, with no interoperability, then don't be surprised when you realise that their interests are not the same as yours. If you use MSN Messenger and Facebook instead of XMPP and email then you are subject to the whims of these two companies and their legal obligations.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Is not like they will avoid them to access the service, or at least a big part of it. There are plenty of places that gives a messenger web gateway.
But closing it is a good first step. It those countries people used to have something in desktop will have to install other alternatives, maybe going out from the messenger, hotmail or even windows in big numbers, going to alternatives (i.e. google talk, and probably gmail by association).
Microsoft is a corporation, not some grand giving entity with the mission to help humanity. If they saw it more in their interests to turn this off then deal with the consequences of leaving access open, who cares. It is not MS's charter to provided uncompromising and unending access for communication to all the poor oppressed peoples in the world. Their charter is to generate profit for its owners and share holders.
Cheers.
How pointless, hopefully everyone will switch to something non commercial like Jabber and the only ones to suffer will be Microsoft.
More power to decentralised protocols like XMPP where anyone can run a server, even if all internet access is cut off to that particular country
I believe these countries have gurus who can grab open source software and end up build a versatile system. Who the hell needs Microsoft?
It could be Jabber all the way.
Aren't those not also American companies?
What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication?
The same thing it says for US citizens relying on non-US companies for their business or communication. There will be times when the company you are relying on makes decisions detrimental to your interests based on said company's understanding of the laws in their country.
Or even the same thing as people relying on others in the same country for business or communication, sometimes they will act in ways that are detrimental to your interests based on what they perceive to be in their best interest.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This reply reminds me of something one my really dumb bosses said to me one time when I was trying to fix a problem I was having in my linux instation.
"Can't you just call Linux and have them fix it?"
Like everything we use has to be centered at some big corporation somewhere...
Also communication systems like WLM enable folks trapped in tyrannical regimes to communicate with the outside world. The ability to communicate with Europeans is an important mechanism for spreading Western values -- human rights, democracies, and simple compassion -- into brutal societies.
I read several people talking about the alternatives to Live Messenger but what are they? I'm sure every open source alternative supports emotes and simple text formatting but what about Video Chat?
Currently I only know of four IM applications that support video:
- Live Messenger
- Skype (Horrible quality)
- Yahoo!
- Apple iChat (Mac Only)
The year is 2009 and we have fat pipes, so you have little excuse for sticking to 1980s style text conversations.
About the _wisdom_ of these people? Nothing.
These people use the services not because it's some grand choice, but because _others_ have adopted it and the popularity is overwhelming.
Free alternatives exist, but might not be known to many people. It's about popularity. I love free software too, but you have to admit "wisdom" has very little to do with it.
First-world jerkoffs sitting in thier ivory tower commenting on the "wisdom" of these people leaves me pretty speechless.
This has to be one of the worst headlines in recent memory.
> What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their
> business or communication?
What does this say for the wisdom of relying on a free service provided by any company for their business or communication?
BTW it may shock you to learn that the US is not the only country with asinine regulations.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
...power to control..
For the people, some 6 billion plus to communicate openly they will find they are no different in their daily living and can become friends.
But for those in positions of power and control, they would not want this to happen as it takes control and power away from them and even exposes them as the perpetrator of all the bad shit they put on the rest of us.
Here is an example of what better can be done and raises the question of why is it not being done Want to beat terrorism, then remove the reasons that motivate terrorism.
It is some fraction of 1% of the population that is causing the problems for the rest of us.
Compare China today to China before 1980. The difference is night and day. China is freer today because trade injected numerous Western ideas into the country.
For that same reason, the economic sanctions against Burma starve its people of Western ideas.
Trade and communications are the best weapons against tyrannical regimes.
So the only way to prevent that damn thing from starting every time you even look at any MS app is to be designated part of the "Axis of Evil"? Seems worth it.
sic transit gloria mundi
cant this be bypassed easily by use of proxies from sites like hidemyass, etc if they are doing it based on IP's??
otherwise, just change your country in your msn profile..
Why do Cuba, North Korea and all get better security due to a lack of access to one of the biggest malware outlets on the planet and we don't?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't understand either the reasoning here, or why they feel that blocking web service is either desirable or required under US law. (Obviously, it's different if you want to sell something there.)
We do Internet broadcasting (in English) and have a steady audience in Iran, Syria and Sudan (the largest of these being in Iran). It's early evening right now in all three places, and people there are watching TV from the US. Seems to me that that is a good thing.
"Like everything we use has to be centered at some big corporation somewhere..."
Not unless you want definitive help.
The country the US is actually trying to warm up with? oO"
Why now and not sooner?
In Iran, they would actually get the localized message, "Dirka dirka Muhammed jihad"
I don't know whether to rue your comment, or the mods who moderated it "Funny". It seems like /. is giving more and more mod points away to 14 years olds these days. Is it really "funny" when the instinctive association for any Islamic country is "muhammed" and "jihad"? It's not really amusing when people in other countries put on a cowboy hat and do a Bush impersonation of Americans, and it's not really amusing when Americans do a turban/jihad/terrorist impression of Muslim countries. How the hell can there be any constructive dialogue when a large percentile of the populace is busy acting like 14 year olds?
I don't know about the other four countries but last summer I was in Iran and USA brands were ubiquitous. For example all the restaurants had either Coca Cola or Pepsi which seem to be the locals' favorite drink. "Bottled in Iran with license from Coca Cola" read the cans, in plain English. And they were less than 50c!
I was clearly on the minority when drinking the local traditional soda, dugh, made with yogurt and mint.
Some locals take offense if asked about the embargo. It hurts their national feelings. "we've been under embargo for generations and we know how to get around it".
Friends who hadn't been to Iran for several years missed the old traditional Persian cola brands. Apparently Persicola and Zam Zam tasted much better than the USA brands. But locals didn't remember when the change had happened.
Similarly local olive and olive oil brands had been replaced with European counterparts. Last news I hear from Iran is that some clerics are getting around the import tariffs and illegally importing cheap Malaysian fruits which are driving local farmers to bankruptcy.
A few years ago the supreme leader abolished an article in the constitution which prevented the government from privatizing core state services. Now Ahmadinejad is eliminating the subsidies for bread, electricity, and gas.
Recently the Iranian government sounds more like the Bush neocon administration than a revolutionary socialist one.
I know that the embargo of Internet services are different to get around from the embargo of physical goods, but many people in Iran already use a VPN and browse with a foreign IP, to get pass the Iranian censorship.
As an individual who currently resides in Syria, I find this simply absurd, but the reason isn't simply Embargoes, it happens to be most embargoed countries do not implement copyright laws pertaining to US (and most non-US) company products. Some might have the spiteful reaction, 'well then they shouldn't be provided any services', while the reason for these companies not getting any copyright rights, is the fact they don't have official representation in these countries for the same reason the embargoes exist, politics.
This brings us to the main reason some services have been denied to the aforementioned countries, Revenue, now because nationals (and residents) of these countries do not abide by global copyright laws, almost all services provided to these countries are either the free in nature, or in the case of non-online products (e.g Windows XP) piracy is the norm.
So as some of you mentioned, its all about politics, what we here see, is a sign that the political status of these countries as embargoed countries, won't be changing any time soon. And the reason is simply, Revenue.
... since according http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption and http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2007/gb2007123_556880.htm linux fronts are opened there... :)
Fortune Rota Volvitur
Am I the only one who expected a flashback to one of Peter Griffin's past foibles?
I'm in a generous mood today, so I'll help:
http://www.teamamerica.com/
You're welcome!
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
For example, I find it hilarious when someone with a Danish accent does an impersonation of an American presidential cowboy.
As for the "dirka dirka" comment, it comes from a satirical animation that had a very strong political and philosophical message. Perhaps you have not seen it?
Don't bother. A quick Google search shows this as Linus Torvald's work number. It also shows his web page where he says "If you're looking for Linux information, you'll find more of it somewhere else, because I'm hopeless when it comes to documentation."
They don't speak Arabic in Iran, you fool.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing in our government.
Letting these countries use IM would seem to be an excellent way for our intelligence services to keep tabs on their communications (assuming they're stupid enough to use a system based in the USA).
Have gnu, will travel.
>> US-based Syrian political activist George Ajjan created
>> a web site promoting democracy in Syria, only to find
>> GoDaddy blocked anyone inside Syria from seeing it
Give me a single example when a country became democratic (long term) due to the US "promoting" democracy there. You can't do it. Democracy by definition has to come from the "demos" - the people. For it to stick, democracy has to be the point where society achieves its lowest potential energy state, so to speak.
That depends on whether you want some clueless ass to lower his productivity by smacking his monitor like a monkey at a banana vending machine until it works, or have a trained professional fix something in a tenth of the time so that business can resume as normal...
Xaotik Designs
Good point- money...
Is it possible that Microsoft does not sell their products in those countries, therefore anyone using their software is using a pirated version?
If so, then this could be a business plan- not a censorship issue.
No reason to lie.
I don't think that MS really wants to lose tons of users, because I am from Syria and switching the country in my profile re-granted my access to the Messenger service.
Your Ad here
But isn't this what makes the net cool. If you're blocked you can find a way around it. You don't *have* to use MSN. Or Facebook. There's other ways to talk.
Maybe they'll create pariah-net or something.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Not every Muslim is a terrorist. At most times, those terrorists aren't even considered Muslims at all. Think before you speak. (I'm a buddhist by the way, posting AC for patriotic Americans with mod points)
Why now, since this flies in the face of the Obama administration's softening stance on Cuba?
Because Microsoft is not the Obama Administration! If Microsoft is ordered by the federal government to open Messenger to Cuba, then we can complain. But until then, the two are not (at least officially) in conflict with one another. If Microsoft sees reason to deny Messenger service to Cuba, then they can. It's Microsoft's product; there's no good reason that I can see for why they cannot do this.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
It seems to me that allowing a combination of big business and government to develop and implement foreign policy is about as sane and responsible as letting a convicted pedophile babysit your kids.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Japan, West Germany.
I'm mentioning that so as to point out that the situation in both of those countries was radically different from what we're looking at now.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
I don't really disagree with your main point, but do you think that publishing information and opinions about how democracy might change things in Syria (in a language Syrians can read...) would somehow be completely pointless in getting people to act or think differently?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
...so people would stop to force me to use that crappy thing to communicate with them. (Other than the phone, going over, writing a letter, drawing a giant cloud-message in the sky, or hiding a secret message in a 2000 year old book.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
While the main spoken language of Iran is Farsi, Arabic is the second language. After all The Holy Q'uran is written in Arabic.
The US military recent made Windows purchases. In other words, they gave away money in the form of purchasing toxic assets. Now we know what they got in return.
as rogue state.
Yours In Socialism,
Kilgore Trout
The Export Administration Act (EAA) prohibits export of crypto to (dun dun dunnnn) Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Presumably windows messenger has some kind of crypto in it so Microsoft is blocking them to somehow cover their asses legally.
(I'm a buddhist by the way, posting AC for patriotic Americans with mod points)
How funny! A Buddhist trying to skirt around karma! You should know better.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Well Islam is the official religion of Iran, so the Muhammad part is right. The Jihad have quite a few supports from Iran, and no doubt get quite a bit of money from there, so that is probably not too far off. Besides, it was a joke... jokes mix reality with fantasy in a way that makes it comical.
I'll just say what I feel... if Muslims really *really* didn't like Jihad and Hamas, they would eventually lose some power. But somehow these people are getting money, guns, bombs and training. It really doesn't seem that the Muslim community as a whole *really* wants them to stop.
Now as far as cowboy hats and southern accents to impersonate Americans... they are probably attempting to portray stupidity. The part of the country you live in may not wear Wranglers and cowboy hats, but trust me, there are plenty of idiots in every corner of America.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Whooosh, it's a Team America World Police reference, but thanks for playing.
You just got troll'd!
It just goes to show the danger of using proprietary closed network services... This now means that anyone in these countries is unable to communicate with people using MSN anywhere else in the world...
On the other hand, with a freely federated service like email or jabber/xmpp the individual provider doesn't matter.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
.....but knowing American geography skills, you'd end up liberating the arctic.
The American Army Air Force was able to find Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Cologne and Hamburg with very little problem. Would you really like to go for Round 2? Looking for so free some urban renewal?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Germany was already a democracy... Adolf Hitler was democratically elected, and him being removed from power had a lot more to do with the USSR and the UK than it did the US.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Why stop there? I'd love Microsoft to block Messenger in Australia, too.
In Germany democracy emerged in spite, not thanks to, American occupation. You should read up on it, it's fascinating. It's as if the US did everything in its power for democracy NOT to see any uptake.
And surely you don't want to use the methods used in Japan to instill democracy in other countries. And besides, how is it a democracy if there's only one party? :-) That's the kind of democracy they have over in Russia. Sure, on paper it's democracy. They hold elections, have parliament, etc. But there's a giant conservative ruling party and fringe liberal parties that barely get any seats in the Duma (their congress) and the power of the people is quite limited because of this.
Dear Sir/Madame
My government recognizes that your government is a repressive regime, straight out of the worst pages of history. We further recognize that you are trapped somewhere between the bronze and the iron ages. Because of this, we feel it necessary to restrict your freedom of expression, along with your freedom to find and use information that might help you to overthrow your repressive regime. For this purpose, we are denying your ability to communicate with family and freinds outside of your repressive regime.
We truly hope that you understand that this is only for the good of all citizens of earth.
Please don't attempt to respond to this message, or we shall be forced to block whatever form of communication you find that is still working.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Not to tout my back bacon; but OpenBSD is made here (Mostly) due to the fact that Encryption is NOT a "State Secret", By moving your software development to Canada you get all the Protection of a Modern G8 Country's Intellectual Property Law and some damn good (Ethnic and Local) Engineers.
That and you can export your end product to where ever you like.
Oh we also cost less because our dollar is cheaper at the moment and There's no Healthcare Premiums to pay (Unless you set up shop in Ontario). Now we do have higher corporate Taxes but there are ways around those laws.
I am a member of the Lunar embassy to Earth and even we have MS products (legal and all of course, at least based on lunar law). They are not localised yet so in the mean time we use the Earth time zone and settings. Annoying but until there's more of us, they wont add a lunatic locale.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Without MS tolerating piracy, you can expect Windows to diminish to strongholds only in A) The USA B) Western Europe and C) India (because most tech support comes from India it would make sense they would use it there because of the familiarity). Linux is currently a viable choice for most people. When the already-learned Windows is available for $0 and the new and unfamiliar Linux is available for $0, and when the applications for Windows including games, Office, etc. are available for $0 why switch? On the other hand whenever Linux costs $0, Windows costs half your yearly pay, Office costs your yearly pay, and any other applications cost at least a week's paycheck, the rest of the world would switch to Linux. Whenever half the world's population is using Linux, there are more Linux applications being written, with more Linux applications, the incentive to stick to MS software lessens for the MS strongholds, when that happens MS loses even more marketshare. In the end MS goes bankrupt, the world switches to Linux and Apple still has a small niche market for top-of-the-line computers.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I don't know, if I were a spookey CIA type, I'd want the citizens to communicate in those country via a means that not particularly traceable. Back in the day they used to say a better way to defeat the Soviet Union in the cold war was to take cost of one B1 bomber and buy toshiba laptops loaded with Unix and drop them instead of Nuc's.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
This is excellent news.
I applaud all efforts to migrate people away from using Microsoft software or services. There are, after all, many better bits of software freely available without paying money to Microsoft.
I even more applaud Microsoft's efforts to achieve this same result. :o)
'It's not really amusing when people in other countries put on a cowboy hat and do a Bush impersonation of Americans,...'
Yes, it is.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I've taken a cursory look over the comments here and they seem to be directed at the medium rather than the message.
It's not about MS, it's about the right to speak out on issues that you care about via whatever medium is available.
Whomever decreed this has absolutely no idea of what they are doing.
A quick follow up of the referenced article shows that it was MS itself unilateraly decreeing this. The reason is:
"but the one that apparently concerns Microsoft is that the US has put embargoes on each of them."
Charming.
So now we have an American company deciding who may say things.
I personally say "bollocks".
"Land of the Free" - crap.
You allow a corporation to decide who can say something.
Nice.
Don't bet on it. All a government has to do is threaten to stop buying M$ and M$'ll make all sorts of concessions on things other than price and licensing terms. The choice M$ may have had was between pulling the MSN plug or having NO government users in the affected countries. When making a choice between enabling freedom of speech and making a few bucks, why should suggesting that M$ is no different from Google on this issue be considered evidence of "bias"?
Tech Public Policy stuff
But isn't this what makes the net cool. If you're blocked you can find a way around it. You don't *have* to use MSN. Or Facebook. There's other ways to talk.
There are, OTOH if you have friends you only have contact with though MSN now might be a good time to start checking up on other contact details for them.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
It looks to me like it *was* linus's work number when he was at transmeta (at least from the address thats alongside it on http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/ ). Firefox tells me that page hasn't been modified since 1999.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
How are they gonna whip the people up into a state where they support all sorts of crazy invasions and so on, if they portray 'the enemy' in a respectful light?
Requiem for the American Dream
Amen
It's not really amusing when people in other countries put on a cowboy hat and do a Bush impersonation of Americans
I think you are misunderestimating us...
It's not really a Republican -vs- Democrat sort of thing.
What foreign country and administration established and funded the organization later known as Al Qaeda during the USSR/Afghanistan war?
What foreign country and administration substantially financed Iraq in the 1980s in the Iraq/Iran war?
Republican results? Marcos out of power.
I'll pick the one place that I have first hand knowledge of. Marcos was kept in power because he was buds with President Reagan from the Governor of California days.
But ... for whatever his other faults were, Marcos did more in the way of building infrastructure than other single person in Philippine history (which sadly includes the lack of rebuilding after WWII). Imelda Marcos still wields considerable power in the Senate, Corazon Aquino is regarded as a failure and nearly all older people (that I talked to) miss the Marcos days.
The US was born a Republic and never should have gotten into the Empire business.
And to return to topic, Ballmer must do this, or else when Obama nationalizes Microsoft, he might get fired like Rick Wagoner.
They speak... Iranian? :S
Please do it more strict, stronger, wider, ... please continue embargoing us on your proprietary services. Please do it on all your services. ...) more and more everyday.
It is really sad how people in my country rely on proprietary services of foreign countries, specially the enemy ones like US. Even our government relies heavily on MS products and services in IT. Please awaken them by these kind of embargo. Maybe this way we learn about lock-in and dangers of monopoly of US companies.
I hope people and government use open products and services (FOSS, open standards, distributed services,
Persian Project Management Software as a Service
slashdot just embargoed scotland!
It's not really amusing when people in other countries put on a cowboy hat and do a Bush impersonation of Americans, and it's not really amusing when Americans do a turban/jihad/terrorist impression of Muslim countries. How the hell can there be any constructive dialogue when a large percentile of the populace is busy acting like 14 year olds?
Someone once said "an MLRS means never having to say you're sorry". It strikes me that you could that's even more true of a large number of unemployable but highly aggressive teenagers.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Pretty much every US based company have to follow the embargoes, and this means that their subsidiaries in other countries usually follow those lists.
I ended up causing quite a ruccus when I received a tech support call from the Iraqi embassy in Denmark. That's Iraqi territory and the embargo list I had included Iraq. Just logged the issue and contact info and told the guy that I'd call him back, hung up and checked with my manager.
Ended up getting the embargo list updated from our US overlords, as Iraq had been taken off the official US and UN embargo list a few months earlier. Was surprisingly quick though - took a few hours in all.
He didn't say that. He said that in iran things are like that. Try hearing some of Ahmadinejad's speeches, and you'll note that he uses religion as an excuse for whatever weird things he's doing..
It's not really amusing when people in other countries put on a cowboy hat and do a Bush impersonation of Americans
Yes it is.
By the way, I lived in the US for some time. People asked me if my accent was french, australian or chinese (!). I am brazilian, look like a german and my accent is quite german no matter the language I'm using... Although english people always ask me if I'm american.
Whatever.
You'll find that many people in Iran are actually Baha'i, not Muslim. The largest Persian population outside Iran is in California of all places, most of them Baha'i.
Jihad is not a group, its an action (holy war). It shouldn't be lumped in with Hamas, which is a group not an action
You're generalising. You should know that the majority of the Muslim population is in Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia, Thailand and the Philipenes to a lesser extent). Neither of the Asian Muslim nations have anything to do with Hamas or Al-queda, in fact few nations outside Palestine, have much to do with Hamas, their support base is almost entirely Palestinian. The other Arab Nations supported Fatah as much as they supported Hamas, its the Palestinian state they support not any one group. As for Al-Queda, they are operating primarily out of Saudi Arabia. Saying the "muslim community as a whole" is disingenous at best as it is as varied as the christian community or the non-religious community.
So, by your reckoning, every Indonesian who isn't acting against Hamas is in league with Hamas despite the fact they have no connections to the group what so ever, that's like saying that every American who is not actively hunting down the KKK is in the KKK.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Doesn't exist any more. I dont think they will be threatening anyone any time soon.
There, fixed that for you.
The RAF did most of the recon and path finding in WWII because the USAAF didn't have planes with the speed and range for most of the war. Remember that the Navigation and Radar systems installed on US fighters and bombers were almost exclusively British designed.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I am generalizing (about middle eastern people I guess); I find generalizing a bit easier to convey a general feeling. I don't remember the last time the KKK even made the local news, much less national headlines and killing thousands with terrorist actions on nearly a daily basis. Next.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Which is strange because I don't hear about this on a daily basis.
Once again you're generalising and projecting, the simple fact is that the level of "terrorist" attacks you describe isn't happening but racism and xenophobia are real problems in both out nations and are more likely do damage or destroy our way of life. Don't base your knowledge on what you hear on the news, they've proven time and time again they will report anything for ratings not matter how incorrect it is, doubly so for US news organisations, NEXT.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I shall, in fact, read up on that. Thanks for the tip.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.