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Originally Posted by dennisw
One of the keystone principals of democracy is the freedom of speech or expression. Is it possible to have freedom of speech without freedom of religion? Is it possible to establish a democracy in a middle-eastern country where the ability to discuss Christianity or other religions other then Islam is not tolerated? Sounds like a long shot to me. just my 2 cents..............
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I will agree that democracy as WE know it could not exist in the Middle East. it would have to be changed and modified to meet the needs of the muslim faith.
I will disagree with your statement that discussion of Christianity and other religions is not tolerated. It may be true for the 'orthodox' types like the Wahabbists from Saudi Arabia, but they're not the majority. Islam at it's core is a very tolerant religion. In fact it says to embrace other believers in 'God" no matter what religion that particular God belongs to because they're all the same 'God'. How is it that in other countries over there (including Iraq before 2003) that Muslims and Christians could live side by side without and problems? Look at Egypt. Heck, in 2003 nobody I met in Iraq cared about the beliefs of the neighbors. (As long as they weren't Jewish of course...) There was one neighborhood where the one street had Sunnis and Shias AND Christians all living together. Not a single problem.
Makes ya wonder how we got to this point...
As far as "releasing the dogs" I tend to disagree. We need a new strategy, that's for sure, but you can't just go over there and beat everyone down. It may work at first, but it's a downward spiral. It may start with sticking it to the verified 'insurgents' but where does it stop? What happens when people come to us and tell us that their neighbor is an insurgent (which happens a lot) because they're mad they have more sheep then them?
Like I told someone the past week, just because carpet bombing worked in WW2, doesn't mean it'll work again.