Yeah, but Island. But, but.

I literally this second watched Catholics hurling rocks at Police in Northern Ireland. No-one blames Catholicism for that.

The problem is that unfounded, vile accusations have been made against Muslims, mostly it appears out of fear and ignorance. I would hope that any of this type of bigotry would be called out.

More or less everyone was quick to condemn Alfred1 for his racist comments - it seems to me that we should all be as quick to condemn any similar stereotyping of all Arab people or all Muslims.

Hey, I personally disagree with all organized religions. I actively dislike religions that have built-in inequalities for any segment of humanity. So, when it comes to Islam and women, I am unhappy. However, I don't propose killing a quarter of the world's population.

I applaud your concern for the women and girls. You are such a wonderful humanitarian.

Wait, you left out your concern for the unborn person. No concern for their well being?

Oh, but they were raped and did not specifically ask for this. So.....in this case two wrongs make a right?

I was not intending to make this an abortion thing, but trying to compare abortion to covered faces show that you do not understand the true reason people are against abortion. Or maybe that is intentional?

Two wrongs NEVER make a right, but three lefts do....

:D

Reminds me.... How do you find your way to the nearest army base?

hmmm. If Catholicism had a much touted biblical passage calling for the use of young boys, to what ever extreme needed; then that might change.

If those Catholics hurling rocks at police started hurling passenger planes at giant buildings, in the name of Catholicism (supported softly by the lack of Catholic outrage) THEN that might change.

Thing is; Being "understanding . .forgiving" is not going to resolve . . .disolve the motivation of a group who openly attack, kill, exterminate any "infidels." (as supported by their book) Those w/in those religions who do nothing to control their religion are complicit in the crime.

I have seen ZERO evidence of muslims controlling their so-called extremists.

Thanks for the support Island. I got a kick out of the left wing cabal spewing excuses about not effectively refuting anything but catching the mistake about the tamil tigers. I also enjoyed all the bigot talk. All I want to know from them is one thing. This religion that has yet to show any track record of getting along with anybody. If their fine religious law, the sharia, was instituted here, and one of your daughters had the misfortune to get raped, in order to maintain the family honor, would you be the one to stone her to death or would you delagate it to her brothers?

Oh brother, now we get to hear how bad catholics, amish, and past US citizens are/were the bad guys. Just don't pick on those poor Muslim extremists. What a bunch of crap! You US hating, Muslim extremist defenders need to..... Oh never mind!

Some of my best friends are Muslim extremists:)

LOL, LD.

oh, and; I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS ! ;)


Mule; no prob .... I do it for that humiliated dog in you avitar. :D

Thanks Island, if my obviously fearsome American Pit Bull Terrier knew that picture was on the internet he'd escape from the yard & run in front of a truck.

Go Tim.

Len, if you can become the dynamite vendor you can get a Carrera GT.

It is true that organized islam really hadn't said much until the London bombings, although muslims had spoken out against the terrorists. However, news reports suggest there may even be a fatwah (sp?) ordered by some English (or living in England) clerics after this last bombing.

Key words in above post suggests and may. Don't hold your breath.

Techie....Afgan has ALWAYS been controled by the Warlords....the King was more or less an elected position, that had little power, except to settle disputes...Theus it has always been a fractured country....except when invaded, then they rally to the flag and beat the ***** outa whoever has invaded...

"A loosely organized raggedy assed group of rugged individualists"

My Muslim friends condemn terrorism. They strongly deny that they are taught to kill non-Muslims or to convert by force. Several important North American Muslims condemn terrorism. Before you condemn 25% of the world's humans, make friends with some Muslims -- or if that is unpalatble or impossible, locate a local mosque and ask to speak with someone in charge -- and ask them about this thread.

In the 50s, white America spread lies about Black men. My favorite: the reason black men want to end segregation is because all black men were plotting to take the white man's wives and daughters from them.

(WASHINGTON, DC - 9/11/2001) The American Muslim Council (AMC) strongly condemns this morning’s plane attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon and expresses deep sorrow for Americans that were injured and killed. AMC sends out its
condolence to all victims of this cowardly terrorist attack. There is no cause that justifies this type of an immoral and inhumane
act that has affected so many innocent American lives. AMC supports all efforts of the investigation in order to track down the
people responsible for this tragic act of terrorism.

The American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC) issued a statement which reads:
“American Muslims utterly condemn what are apparently vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. We join
with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. No Political cause could ever be
assisted by such immoral acts.”

The AMPCC consists of AMC, Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Muslim Alliance and Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Contact: Farkhunda Ali, Communications Director
(202) 789-2262 ext. 205, farkhunda@amconline.org

"(WASHINGTON, DC - 9/11/2001) The American Muslim Council (AMC) strongly condemns this morning’s plane attacks . . ."

hmmm. They were apologizing before the question of 'WHO' had been answered.


Kinda like the guy at the bar who says; "oh, whoops (smack) my fist just slipped and accidently punched you in the nose. --sorry. :rolleyes:

Oh, yeah. I didn't post the retraction the AMC issued later in the month when it realized that the terrorists that they had condemned were Muslims. :rolleyes: The point is that they condemned the act of terrorism, as many Muslims publically and privately do. Ask a Muslim. More food for thought (or whatever it is you'd like to do with it)... Here's an opinion piece published on Al Jazeera this week:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/25D45C98-471B-4A36-8253-F2120BEA180F.htm

Al-Qaida: Wrong answers to real problems
By Soumayya Ghannoushi

Madrid and Bali, Casablanca and Riyadh, I have come to predict al-Qaida's responsibility for a given criminal act through the following test. If I find myself at a loss for an answer to the questions: "Why the innocent?" and "For what purpose?", then, in all likelihood, the crime is of al-Qaida's doing.

The absurd, random mass carnage of young and old, male and female is its trademark. Residential buildings, tourist resorts, rush hour trains and crowded buses turn into grand spectacles of mass murder where no heed is paid to the victim's identity and the extent of his/her responsibility for the policies of a country defined as the enemy. The boundaries between the world of politics and that of organised crime are blurred, as political demands get wedded to criminal methods.

Al-Qaida, it must be said, is no pioneer in this field. For although it founds its ideology on religious references and speaks a language overwhelmed by religious symbols, al-Qaida falls largely within the modern tradition of revolutionary anarchists - from the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks down to latter-day Marxist guerrillas like the Baadr-Meinhoff Gang.

Destruction as a passion

Like these modern revolutionary nihilists, al-Qaida warriors subscribe to an instrumentalist logic that recognises no distinction between the legitimate and illegitimate, thereby sanctioning acts of terror for the attainment of their ends. Like them, they are more interested in the act of destruction than its effects. As the father of Russian anarchism Mikhail Bakunin put it, 'the passion for destruction is also a creative passion'.

Al-Qaida is also a revival of the radical currents that surfaced in Islamic history from time to time only to be defeated by moderate mainstream Islam led by the Ulama (scholars). In particular, they appear to be a continuation of Kharijite thought with its dualistic puritanical conception of the world and the community of Muslims and of Gnostic underground organisations like the Assassins and Qaramita, who sought to disrupt the stability of Muslim societies through acts of terrorism.

Al-Qaida would be best seen as a mixture of these political and ideological strands. Apart from the ideological justifications it takes recourse to, one would, indeed, be hard put to find much that distinguishes it from Latin American anarchist groups. Their acts share the same destructive ferocity, the same absurdity. The difference is that where one finds its ideological legitimacy in Marxism, the other seeks it in the Islamic religion.

Islam misinterpreted

How can the murder of the innocent be perpetuated in the name of a religion that likens the loss of one human life to the loss of humanity at large? How can Islam be said to sanction such acts of aggression when it openly forbids revenge and declares in no less than five Quranic chapters that: "No bearer of a burden bears the burden of another"?

How can the killing of ordinary men and women going about their business be permissible when even the battlefield has been regulated by the strictest moral code: "Destroy not fruit trees, nor fertile land in your paths. Be just, and spare the feelings of the vanquished. Respect all religious persons who live in hermitages or convents and spare their edifices"?

Perhaps the one thing al-Qaida militants have proven good at, apart from the shedding of innocent blood, is fanning the flames of hostility to Islam and Muslims. From the darkness of their caves and hiding places, these self-appointed spokesmen for about one and a half billion Muslims worldwide have excelled in stirring latent negative images of Islam within the Western psyche. Through their senseless crimes, Islam, in the minds of most, has become a euphemism for mass slaughter and destruction. Thanks to them, racism, bigotry and Islamophobia could rear its ugly head unashamedly in broad day light.

The terrible irony is that Muslims currently find themselves helplessly trapped between two fundamentalisms, between Bush's hammer and Bin Laden's anvil, hostages to an extreme right wing American administration, aggressively seeking to impose its expansionist and hegemonic will over the region at gunpoint, and to a cluster of violent, wild fringe groups, lacking in political experience or sound religious understanding.

'Us' and 'them'

Although the two claim to be combating each other, the reality is that they are working in unison, one providing the justifications the other desperately needs for its fanaticism, ferocity and savagery.

No wonder, it didn't take the neo-conservative world supremacists long to spot the immense opportunities 11 September handed them. Their puritanical missionary belief in being God's instruments on earth and grand imperial ambitions could now be realised through shameless emotional blackmail and bogus moral claims.

The two share a shallow, myopic, dualistic conception of the world populated by 'us' and 'them' in Bush's language, 'believers' and 'non-believers' in Bin Laden's. Al-Zarqawi and his fellows then brandish the sword of excommunication (takfir) against the Muslim body itself in an endless orgy of maiming and mutilation.

Some are to be expelled, because they are Shia, others because they are Sufis, or Mu'tazilites (rationalists) and so on in a perpetual elimination process that spares no one but a handful of puritan elects from its deadly reach.

The vast stock of common denominators is ignored, that which tears and divides is sought. These would rather see the world turn into an ever- raging battlefield, Muslim societies into blazing scenes of sectarian schism and civil war in a region rich in ethnic, religious, sectarian and linguistic diversity.

I daily use London's trains and buses and could have been one of Thursday bombings' victims. I hardly think that killing or maiming me would have aided the causes the bombers claim to defend. The truth is that these narrow-minded fanatics are a scourge to the causes they purport to champion.

Ask any Iraqi or Palestinian if the bombing of the innocent in Bali, Casablanca, or London has helped alleviate their suffering. If anything, they have handed their oppressors with an open permit to butcher and destroy, safe in the knowledge that blame has been shifted from them to their victims.

Just causes, unjust means

So, Sharon demolishes the homes of Palestinians, expropriates their lands and sends his helicopters to massacre them in their hundreds in the name of combating terrorism. Arab regimes stifle dissenting voices, imprison and assassinate in the name of resisting terrorism. American tanks and gunships invade, occupy, kill and rampage, all in the name of terrorism.

Al-Qaida's mindless acts have turned the aggressor, who colonises, massacres and pillages, into a victim. For all their material vulnerability, victims have a very powerful asset: their moral case as innocent victims. Perhaps, this is the cruellest dimension to these senseless crimes: That the powerless has been stripped even of his victimhood. Even this has been appropriated by the powerful.

The causes al-Qaida extremists speak for are certainly just causes. The sanctioning of genocide and occupation in Palestine, slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Iraq through exposure to depleted Uranium and years of barbaric sanctions first, then through bombing and shelling without bothering to count the dead, brutal invasion of the country, destruction of its infrastructure and humiliation of its people undoubtedly rank among modern history’s bloodiest crimes and darkest tragedies.

But the mindless killing of the innocent in Madrid, or New York is the wrong answer to these real grievances. These are illegitimate responses to legitimate causes. Just as occupation is morally and politically deplorable, so, too, is this blind aggression masquerading as Jihad.

Soumayya Ghannoushi is a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.

good stuff there, strother.