Are we at war with Islam?

Originally Posted by lrd

Holland Daze
From the December 27, 2004 issue: The Dutch rethink multiculturalism.
by Christopher Caldwell
12/27/2004, Volume 010, Issue 15
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...darxx.asp?pg=1

Another change: Dutch Commandos set for Afghan mission

[NousDefionsDoc]

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/...0025-8869r.htm

Remaking the Middle East


By Mark Steyn

The other day in the Guardian, house journal of the British left, Martin Kettle wrote:
"The war was a reckless, provocative, dangerous, lawless piece of unilateral arrogance. But it has nevertheless brought forth a desirable outcome which would not have been achieved at all, or so quickly, by the means that the critics advocated, right though they were in most respects."
Very big of you, pal. And I guess that's as near a mea culpa as we'll get: Even though George W. Bush got everything wrong, it turned out right. Funny how that happens, isn't it?
Click to Visit
In a few years' time, they'll have it down pat -- just as they have with Eastern Europe. Oh, the Soviet bloc [the Middle East thugocracies] was bound to collapse anyway. Nothing to do with that simpleton Ronnie Raygun [Chimpy Bushitler]. In fact, all Raygun [Chimpy] did was delay the inevitable with his ridiculous arms build-up [illegal unprovoked Halliburton oil-grab], as many of us argued at the time: See my 1984 column "Yuri Andropov, the young, smart, sexy new face of Soviet communism" [see the April 2004 column: "Things were better under Saddam: The coalition has destroyed Ba'athism, says Rod Liddle, and with it all hopes of the emergence of secular democracy" -- published, really, in the London Spectator.]
By the way, when's the next Not In Our Name rally? How about this Saturday? Millions of NIONists can flood into the centers of San Francisco, New York, Brussels, Paris and proclaim to folks in Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt and Syria and Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority that all the changes under way in the region are most certainly Not In Their Name.
Well, I'm glad they're in mine. I got a lot of things wrong these last three years, but, looking at events last week, I'm glad that, unlike the Nionist Entity, I got the big stuff right. On May 8, 2003, a couple of weeks after the fall of Saddam, I wrote:
"You don't invade Iraq in order to invade everywhere else. You invade Iraq so you don't have to invade everywhere else." And so it's turned out.
Some of the reasons for starting to remake the Middle East in Iraq were obvious within a day or two of September 11, 2001: By his sheer survival, Saddam had become a symbol of America's lack of will -- of the world of Sept. 10, 2001.
But the other reasons weren't all so clear. After the liberation, the doom-mongers dusted down the old Bumper Boys' Book of the British Empire and rattled off a zillion pseudo-authoritative backgrounders about how Iraq was such an artificially cobbled together phony state, the slapdash creation of the Colonial Office in London, you can never make it work.
In fact, the artificially cobbled together country is one reason it has worked so well. The Shi'ites are the biggest group, but, even if they were utterly homogeneous, which they're not, they're not so large they can impose their will easily on the Kurds and Sunnis. When the West's headless chickens were running around squawking there were more than 100 parties on the ballot, it was all going to be one almighty mess, they failed to understand that the design flaw of Iraq is paradoxically its greatest strength: the traditional Arab solution -- the local strongman -- was unavailable.
Instead, in the run-up to the election and in the month since, we have seen various groupings form, hammer out areas of agreement, reach out to other coalitions, identify compromise positions, etc: in a word, politics.
The sight of 8 million Iraqis going to the polls was profoundly moving to their neighbors in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, etc. But it was all the pluralist multiparty smoke-filled room stuff that caught the fancy of the frustrated political class in those other countries. It would have been possible to find a friendly authoritarian Pervez Musharraf type and install him on one of Saddam's solid gold toilets, but it would have been utterly uninspiring to the world beyond Iraq's borders. It would have missed the point of the exercise.
A couple of years back, I went to hear Paul Wolfowitz. I knew him only by reputation -- the most sinister of all the neocons, the big bad Wolfowitz, the man whose name started with a scary animal and ended Jewishly.
In fact, he was a very soft-spoken chap, who compared the challenges of the Middle East with America's experiments in spreading democracy after World War II. He said he thought it would take less time than Japan, and maybe something closer to the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe. I would have scoffed, but he knew so many Iraqis by name -- not just Ahmed Chalabi but a ton of others.
Around the same time, I bumped into Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister and man of letters. He was just back from Egypt, where he had been profoundly moved when asked to convey the gratitude of the Arab people to President Chirac for working so tirelessly to prevent a tragic war between Christianity and Islam. You don't say, I said. And, just as a matter of interest, who asked you to convey that?
He hemmed and hawed and eventually said it was President Hosni Mubarak. Being polite, I rolled my eyes only metaphorically, but decided as a long-term proposition I would bet Mr. Wolfowitz's address book of real people against Mr. Villepin's hotline to over-the-hill dictators. The lesson of these last weeks is that Washington's Zionists know the Arab people a lot better than Europe's Arabists.
Islamism, with its plans to destroy America, take back Europe, colonize Australia and set you up with 72 virgins, may be bonkers but it's a big idea. And you can't beat it with a small, shriveled idea like another decade or three of Hosni Mubarak or Bashar Assad or some such.
The Bush administration decided the only big idea they had to sell was liberty. On Jan. 30, Bush's big idea squared off against the head-hackers' big idea -- you vote, you die -- and we know which the Iraqi people chose and which the rest of the region, to one degree or another, is following.
With hindsight, the fellow travelers were let off far too easily when the Iron Curtain fell like a discarded burqa. Little more than a decade later, they barely hesitated a moment before jumping in on the wrong side of history yet again.
Not in your name? Don't worry, it's not.

Mark Steyn is the senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc. Publications, senior North American columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group, North American editor for the Spectator, and a nationally syndicated columnist.

[jatx]

Unexpected Whiff of Freedom Proves Bracing for the Mideast
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

AIRO, March 5 - The leaders of about half of Egypt's rickety opposition parties sat down for one of their regular meetings this week under completely irregular circumstances. In the previous few days, President Hosni Mubarak opened presidential elections to more than one candidate, and street demonstrators helped topple Lebanon's government.

The mood around the table in a battered downtown Cairo office veered between humor and trepidation, participants said, as they faced the prospect of fielding presidential candidates in just 75 days. "This is all totally new, and nobody is ready," said Mahmoud Abaza, deputy leader of the Wafd Party, one of Egypt's few viable opposition groups. "Sometimes even if you don't know how to swim you just have to dive into the water and manage. Political life will change fundamentally."

The entire Middle East seems to be entering uncharted political and social territory with a similar mixture of anticipation and dread. Events in Lebanon and Egypt, following a limited vote for municipal councils in Saudi Arabia and landmark elections in Iraq, as well as the Palestinian territories, combined to give the sense, however tentative, that twilight might be descending on authoritarian Arab governments.

A mix of outside pressure and internal shifts has created this moment. Arabs of a younger, more savvy generation appear more willing to take their dissatisfaction directly to the front stoop of repressive leaders.

In Beirut on Saturday, a crowd of mostly young demonstrators hooted through a speech by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as he repeated too-familiar arguments for pan-Arab solidarity, without committing to a timetable for withdrawing Syrian soldiers from Lebanon.

Young protesters have been spurred by the rise of new technology, especially uncensored satellite television, which prevents Arab governments from hiding what is happening on their own streets. The Internet and cellphones have also been deployed to erode censorship and help activists mobilize in ways previous generations never could.

Another factor, pressure from the Bush administration, has emboldened demonstrators, who believe that their governments will be more hesitant to act against them with Washington linking its security to greater freedom after the Sept. 11 attacks. The United States says it will no longer support repressive governments, and young Arabs, while hardly enamored of American policy in the region, want to test that promise.

Egypt's tiny opposition movement - called Kifaya, or Enough in English, in reference to Mr. Mubarak's 24-year tenure - has drawn attention across the region, even if the police easily outnumber the few hundred demonstrators who gather periodically outside courthouses or syndicate offices to bellow their trademark slogan. Protesters used to exploit solidarity demonstrations with the Palestinians to shout a few abusive slogans against Mr. Mubarak. Suddenly, they are beaming their frustration right at him.

"Everything happening is taking place in one context, the bankruptcy of the authoritarian regimes and their rejection by the Arab people," said Michel Kilo, a rare political activist in Damascus. "Democracy is being born and the current authoritarianism is dying."

Even so, the changes wrought in each country thus far appear minor and preliminary, though the idea of challenging authoritarian rule more directly is remarkably new. In Egypt, nobody expects anyone but Mr. Mubarak to win this fall. Old rules against basic freedoms like the right to assemble, essential for a campaign, remain unaltered.

The al-Saud clan in Saudi Arabia has not ceded any real power in letting men, but not women, vote for only half the members of the country's nearly 200 councils.

"Congratulations and More Power," read a computer printout staffers hung on the wall of the office of Tarek O. al-Kasabi, the chairman of a Riyadh hospital, after he won one of seven city council seats.

"People want to enlarge the decision-making process, which is a good and healthy thing," said Mr. Kasabi, noting that he would rather move slowly than see the country destabilized. "We know how to reform better than anyone else. It is our life; nobody from outside can dictate how we live."

In Lebanon, young demonstrators with gelled hair or bare midriffs serve as an unlikely model for popular uprisings across the Arab world, especially since their goals do not quite apply elsewhere.

They seek to rid themselves of an outside power, Syria, and their movement, the region's first modern mass democratic one, was galvanized by a horrific one-time event: the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri removed a real estate tycoon turned politician who embodied all the country's hopes to rebuild after the civil war from 1975 to 1990.

"If someone like Hariri can be assassinated it means anyone in the country can be killed," said Doreen Khoury, a 26-year-old getting her master's degree in political science, sitting at the entrance to a small green pup tent downtown.

Ms. Khoury and a colleague, Noura Mourad, have been camping for two weeks in the carnival-like tent city that sprang up spontaneously on Martyrs' Square, once the throbbing heart of this city and now largely sandy lots. Most demonstrators were not even born when the war destroyed it, but they know they want something different.

"This is something unknown for the Arab world - it is pacifist, it is democratic and it is spontaneous," Ms. Mourad, 24, said.

Ahmed Beydoun, a sociology professor at the Lebanese University, noting a crucial difference from the rest of the Arab world, said: "The Lebanese want their institutions to work normally, which is prevented by Syrian influence. It is not a problem with the political system itself."

Taken together, events in Cairo, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Beirut and beyond are the first taste of something new, and the participants are bound to thirst for more.

"The general atmosphere awaits big political and social change," said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi commentator on Dubai television. "There will have to be some sort of dialogue between the regimes and the people, or there will be confrontation, but things will not remain as they are."

Arabs differ on the degree to which American influence helped foster the changed mood, but there is no doubt that pressure from the Bush administration played some role.

Iraq, however, serves more as a threat than a model. Although many Arabs were impressed by the zeal with which Iraqis turned out to vote on Jan. 30, Iraq remains a synonym for frightening, violent chaos.

"When you are a Syrian, or an Egyptian or a Saudi and you see what happened to Iraqi society over the past two years, you wonder if democracy deserves such instability and such a sacrifice of people," said Ghassan Salame, a former Lebanese cabinet minister.

The changes started long before the American military overthrew Saddam Hussein, but there were false starts. Parliamentary elections in Jordan, Yemen and Morocco, for example, did not dilute the power of their authoritarian rulers.

New technology has driven the steps toward greater freedoms. Satellite stations brought news of demonstrations to a widening audience. Indeed, the crowds in Beirut swelled in part because potential demonstrators could see that government troops had not opened fire. Months earlier, Arabs watched similar events unfold in Ukraine.

But undoubtedly the most important new element is the spontaneous involvement of people themselves.

"You need democrats to produce democracy, you can't produce it through institutions," Mr. Salame said. "You need people to fight for it to make it real. Neither American tanks or domestic institutions can do it, you need democrats. In Beirut, you have a hard core of 10,000 to 15,000 youngsters who are democrats and who are imposing the tempo."

Support for them is far from universal, either at home or abroad, however, and may yet limit what the demonstrators achieve.

Inside Lebanon, important domestic forces like the Syrian-backed Hezbollah, the most powerful Shiite organization, have yet to commit to the goal of ending Syrian dominance.

"Shiites are not comfortable with joining the opposition because they would be indirectly supporting U.S. policy in the region," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an expert on Hezbollah at the Lebanese American University.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which the United States and France pushed through to make the demand for a Syrian withdrawal an international one, also stipulates disarming Hezbollah. The group is faced with an intense problem. Hezbollah remains popular among all Lebanese for ending the Israeli occupation of the south, but that popularity might fade if it backs Syria's continued presence.

The American campaign for democracy in the Middle East is viewed by nationalists and many Islamists as a conspiracy to weaken the Arabs. The violence in Iraq helps sustain the idea here that the invasion was not about helping the Iraqis, but rather was part of an American thrust for dominance in the region.

Over all, though, many Arabs sense that small cracks are finally appearing in the brick walls they have faced for decades, even if it will take months or even years to determine just how significant those cracks become.

Some activists wonder, for example, if Syria's governing Baath Party is forced to retreat from Lebanon, how long it will take for demonstrations to emerge in Damascus.

"There is such a high percentage of young people who see the future as something totally black," said Mr. Abaza of the Egyptian Wafd Party. "If you open even a small window for them to see the sky, it will be a tremendous force for change. But they have to be able to see the sky."

[jatx]

So, in light of recent developments, are we at war with Islam? Has your opinion changed either way over the past month? If you're in the ME, I'd love to hear your unfiltered, unvarnished view of the mood on the street.

[zippy]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

It occurs to me that Moslems are increasingly at war with us, whether we like it or not, and in spite of our hearts and minds campaign.

As Solid points out, perceptions are everything. These people see BW contractors as CIA, Mossaad, spies, etc., and treat them as such regardless of who they are and what their mission is.

I do not see how we can hope to sway those primitive people whose media, elders, religious leaders, and neighbors proselytize against us every day.

We can continue to ignore it, and let it grow.

Or we can acknowlege the fact and treat this as the cancer that it is. Identify those who wish us ill and take this war into their homes, and remove the tumors they represent while simultaneously trying to save the reminder of the Islamic body which is not trying to kill us.

Just my .02.

TR

Roger that....

Originally Posted by jatx

So, in light of recent developments, are we at war with Islam? Has your opinion changed either way over the past month? If you're in the ME, I'd love to hear your unfiltered, unvarnished view of the mood on the street.

Just a reminder. The majority of Islam is not within the Middle-East.

[jatx]

Originally Posted by Greenhat

Just a reminder. The majority of Islam is not within the Middle-East.

Good point, but the most dramatic events of late involving Islam's followers sure have been.

You must pardon me for trying to stir the pot a bit. I have been thinking about one of President Bush's quotes on affrmative action lately - the one where he refers to the "soft bigotry of low expectations." Now before I get flamed or IP banned or sentenced to 6 months in confinement with an airsofter, let me underline that I am not suggesting that anyone here is a bigot. But that turn of phrase has been ringing in my ears when I think of the Middle East and Russia and its former satellite states.

I cannot begin to count the number of times that I've heard the argument that Russia tends to grow authoritarian leaders like weeds because (a) the country is too big to manage any other way, or (b) Russians appreciate "strength" in their leaders and value "law and order" over individual rights and democracy. There may or may not be truth to those statements. I don't know. I'm not an expert on Russia and don't pretend to be. But neither are most of the people who repeat that party line on their way to absolving themselves of caring about what happens inside Russia. And when a half-held idea is repeated frequently enough, that, my friends, is what we call public opinion.

I've heard many similar arguments concerning the ME from "regional experts" over the past two years. They point out, perhaps correctly, that (a) factional conflict is a fixed element in the region, exacerbated by the Allies' meddling after WW2 and everyone's meddling since then, (b) that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of democracy, (c) that governments in the region are authoritarian or undemocratic because that is the only way to keep the wheels from coming off the whole thing. I understand the basis for each of these arguments, know that they each contain an element of truth, but am disturbed by the fact that when you sum them together the resulting conclusion is a bit convenient and, well, bigoted.

Which is why I think that this thread is so important. For the time being, we have a leader who is willing to take bold, inconvenient steps "to liberate the oppressed." But are we at war with Islam, or merely the Isamists? Is Islam really incompatible with democracy and, if so, how do we square that with the recent outpouring of civic emotion across the region? The answers are important. The act of answering is important. The alternatives are romanticism or the "soft bigotry of low expectations."

[lrd]

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/200...-on-syria.html

[casey]

Remember, this is the same religion which encourages "taqiyya". Taqiyya is part of the religious santioned doctrine which utilizes the deliberate dissimulation of false statements regarding religious matters (fatwas) to protect the religion and its believers.

"Yet despite this condemnation of betrayal, Islam allows deception in war in order to attain victory. Al-Nawawi said: “The scholars are agreed that it is permissible to deceive the kuffaar (thats YOU) in war in any way possible, except if that would mean breaking the terms of a treaty or trust, in which case it is not permitted". (We don't have a treaty/trust with them.)

"And the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “War is deceit.” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 3029; Muslim, 58). One of the most dangerous elements of deceit is taking the enemy by surprise and catching them unawares before they can get ready to fight".

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice - Stop right there cause it just ain't happenin' again.

[jatx]

Originally Posted by casey

Remember, this is the same religion which encourages "taqiyya". Taqiyya is part of the religious santioned doctrine which utilizes the deliberate dissimulation of false statements regarding religious matters (fatwas) to protect the religion and its believers.

This is very interesting. This is the first mention I've ever read concerning taqiyya, although I'd be the first to admit that my reading and learning has just begun on this topic.

However, I'm not entirely sure that I get your point. You aren't suggesting that we are faced with a broad, popular conspiracy in the Islamic world to sucker the infidels, are you? I have a hard time seeing the Iraqi election turnout and today's massive demonstration in Lebanon (which includes both Muslims and Christians, BTW) as part of an elaborate, taqiyya-derived ruse.

That is probably not what you mean to suggest, though. IMHO, the existence of taqiyya is another enigmatic anachronism that is hard to reconcile with some of the more progressive voices arising from the ME these days. I guess the real question is how anachronistic, in how many believers' estimation, and how central or peripheral taqiyya is to the faith in general. Any ideas there?

My guess (or hope, really) is that some of the more spurious elements of Islam will be jettisoned over time now that the democracy genie is out of the bottle. There are certainly ideas from old Christianity and Judaism that don't get talked about much any more.

[Airbornelawyer]

"Taqiyya" is a Shi'ite concept. Its origins were in attempts by Sunnis to persecute Shi'as. Some Shi'ite scholars argued that it was permissible to hide ones true beliefs to protect oneself and one's family. Other scholars disagreed, or narrowed the circumstances in which it was allowable or the degree of dissimulation that was allowable, narrowing permissible dissimulation to things like battlefield deception and little white lies. Some Sunni scholars argued that taqiyya was acceptable for any Muslim, and was not a Shi'ite-only ocncept. Others argued that taqiyya was never permissible, because it indicated a lack of faith in God's ability or willingness to protect a believer.

A classic fallacy of logic, and often a deceptive one, is to ascribe a characteristic to a group, without acknowledging that the characteristic is neither universal nor unique to that group. As to the former, I would venture that 9 out of 10 Muslims have no idea what taqiyya is - in any religion, the debates of religious scholars often have little resonance with the practicing faithful. And as noted above, Muslim scholars disagreed and still do on taqiyya.

As to the latter, dissimulation is hardly unique to Muslims. As noted, taqiyya has its origins in persecution by Sunnis of Shi'ites. Can we perhaps think of other examples where a religious minority was or would have been persecuted for its beliefs, and debated the permissibility of hiding those beliefs? Or where religious leaders justified deception in the name of the faith?

And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all, that I might by all means save some.

I Corinthians 9:20-22.

In a series of letters, St. Jerome and St. Augustine had a spirited debate over the permissibility of dissimulation. St. Jerome argued that it was sometimes necessary, and cited Galatians 2:11-14, among other passages. St. Augustine disagreed, arguing that affirmatively lying, about faith or anything else, was a sin, but even he wrote in De Mendacio (On Lying) that "It is lawful then either to him that discourses, disputes, and preaches of things eternal, or to him that narrates or speaks of things temporal pertaining to edification of religion and piety, to conceal at fitting time whatever seems fit to be concealed: but to tell a lie is never lawful, therefore neither to conceal by telling a lie." St. Thomas Aquinas discussed this debate in the Summa Theologica, and concluded that dissimulation was a sin. However, he appears to have accepted St. Augustine's distinction, noting "Just as a man lies when he signifies by word that which he is not, yet lies not when he refrains from saying what he is, for this is sometimes lawful; so also does a man dissemble, when by outward signs of deeds or things he signifies that which he is not, yet he dissembles not if he omits to signify what he is."

In the early Church, the question was whether Christians could engage in dissimulation among non-believers, including Jews and Romans. When the Church achieved power, this became generally a non-issue, until the Reformation. It arose again during the Reformation.

Nicodemite is the term used to describe certain Protestants who hid their beliefs, attending Mass and observing the sacraments. These Protestants cited the example of Nicodemus the Pharisee. Nicodemites were found in even nominally Protestant lands, such as among Anabaptists living in Lutheran lands. John Calvin denounced Nicodemism as apostasy, stating that true believers should accept martyrdom or flight, rather than pretend to worship the false idols of Catholicism.

Where Protestants had power, Catholics also sometimes resorted to dissimulation. The Church of England required loyalty oaths (one of the reasons for the Puritan flight and for the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution). To protect English Catholics and Jesuit missionaries, Jesuit scholars argued in favor of dissimulation. Puritans generally rejected that, and after pushing the limits of what Augustine might have found permissible, many Puritans chose flight.

A study of this issue is Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution, and Conformity in Early Modern Europe by Perez Zagorin (Harvard University Press, 1990).

For the same reasons as above for various Christians, Jews also have a history of similar dissimulation. Crypto-Judaism refers primarily to Sephardim in Spain, forced to convert to Christianity at the time of the Inquisition, who secretly maintained their Jewish beliefs while outwardly acting Catholic.

Dissimulation, when it arises, primarily occurs only among religious minorities who actively face persecution from a majority. In the face of anti-Semitism, Jews in Europe generally kept to themselves and avoided public manifestations of their religious beliefs, but did not actively practice dissimulation except in certain circumstances such as the Inquisition. Jews in Muslim lands also followed this model, practicing dissimulation only in cases of active persecution such as under the Almohads in the 1200s. During the Reformation, Protestant Nicodemites existed in Catholic areas, and Anabaptits Nicodemites in Lutheran areas. Catholics practiced dissimulation in Protestant England (Anglican and Puritan), and Puritans themselves toed a fine line (even when Puritans were technically in power in England).

Minority sects, especially ones considered heretical or apostate, also have practiced dissimulation. Shi'ites are no longer considered merely a sect (though Wahhabis, for instance, do consider them heretical), but when taqiyya arose, they were a persecuted minority. Other sects considered heretical or apostate who have engaged in the practice include Isma'ilis, Druze and Alawites, all offshoots of Sevener Shi'ism. The Dönme, a Jewish messianic sect founded in Salonika in the Ottoman Empire, also practiced dissimulation after publicly converting to Islam. Today, their descendants are neither Jewish nor Muslim.

Dissimulation has a history among Jews, Christians and Muslims, but is not a defining characteristic of Judaism, Christianity or Islam.

[casey]

Originally Posted by jatx

This is very interesting. This is the first mention I've ever read concerning taqiyya, although I'd be the first to admit that my reading and learning has just begun on this topic.

It is at this point that something in your brain should have stopped you from posting further.

Impressive, in just a few short paragraphs you have discovered a new concept, asked and assumed my answer to your question, then managed to form an opinion and develop a focused muse (re: said concept) on the existence of taqiyya.
If I may suggest - before posting again, actually read the fatwas that have been issued (take it easy, and start from 98 on) and try and understand what kind of religion encourages same. Grasp what Sharia' Law is all about, then ask yourself "Am I hated because I'm black, British, handicapped, white, democrat, communist, short, educated, American, republican, et al...... or is it just because I am not muslim"?

There are certainly ideas from old Christianity and Judaism that don't get talked about much any more.

Yes, yes, I keep hearing this. But would any nation in the world today allow Christianity or Judaism to teach that beheading any non-beliver is still a relative punishment? How about if it was taught in a high school text book to all sophmores, juniors and seniors as it is today in Saudia Arabia?

Don't answer - turn off your TV and read.

[jatx]

Originally Posted by casey

Don't answer - turn off your TV and read.

PM inbound

[Pete]

"Yes"

That's the short answer.

The long answer can be wrapped around 99 trees from here to next Sunday and debated at every turn but still boils down to "Yes".

Pete

Originally Posted by casey

Yes, yes, I keep hearing this. But would any nation in the world today allow Christianity or Judaism to teach that beheading any non-beliver is still a relative punishment? How about if it was taught in a high school text book to all sophmores, juniors and seniors as it is today in Saudia Arabia?

Don't answer - turn off your TV and read.

Saudi Arabia is not in itself representative of Islam. Shall we suggest that Jim Jones was representative of Christianity?