Islam and the absence of Chinese terrorists...

[bridgit]

'In the wake of the most recent eruption in terrorist activity, whether interrupted or successful, the world's media have been full of stories and op-ed pages citing the failures of the West in coming to terms with Islam.

For their part, Islamic scholars have pointed out that a very large proportion of Muslims are not terrorists, and thus to confuse the religion with terrorism is pointless. That is contentious. Let us think for a moment of the two ways of wording a statement, and because this is a contentious topic, let's look elsewhere at an older, more sinister albeit state-sponsored terrorist organization, the Waffen-SS.'

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HH26Aa01.html

[bryant69]

1. Interesting article

It does stray a little two close to the "Muslims should either fix the terrorists or should be considered allies of the terrorists" thinking of Cal Thomas - but interseting anyway.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. very interesting

and well-worth the read

[The Stranger]

3. China is not in the Middle East - its terrorists lack strategic importance

[Ravenseye]

4. I think it's valid that Muslims should be introspective

To say they're not taking a look at their religion because of what's going on is absurd. They are. The vast majority of Muslims are like anyone else. They want a good job, food on the table, a nice life, a healthy family, and enough time to enjoy it all. There is no inate aspect of a Muslim's life that causes them to want to blow themselves up on a Bus, or fly a plane into a building.

What's happening is that Muslims are looking at the extreme elements within their religion and asking the question "Why is this happening?". Why are there extremist clerics who coopt Islamic youth into doing such horrific acts? Part of the problem is internal, and part is external.

Most of the Clerics who preach violence use the 'clause' in the Quran of Mohammed saying it's ok to use violence to defend yourselves. That's basically the root of the whole thing. The early Muslim's were under constant attack, and they wondered whether it was ok to kill the people who were attacking them. Mohammed made it clear that the people who attack them, can and should be retaliated against. It wasn't a warlike statement, but neither was it a pacifist one. The basic tenet was to live in peace and not murder or kill or do anything bad, but it also laid out (much as Paul does in the Bible) that 'turn the other cheek' doesn't mean 'sit there and be killed'.

This becomes a problem now when we have a President calling the whole thing a crusade, and we throw money at Israel. They, meaning the extremist clerics, see their religion under attack, and claim they may use any means necessary to combat this evil. It's a corruption of the Quran, and many Muslims recognize this, but it's also one that will be hard pressed to be eliminated as long as these extremist feel under attack.

Complete and utter disengagement by the U.S. might accomplish this goal, but it would also be monumentally stupid and harmfull to both the U.S. and the region. The majority of muslims can only do so much to calm the fringe while the U.S. and it's allies continue to create new Martyrs and Terrorists. Every time a bomb kills a civilian in the Middle East it becomes more difficult for the moderate and progressive voices in Islam to say anything. It becomes nearly impossible to tell the man who has just lost his entire family, including his children, to american bombs, that he isn't under attack...that it's all ok...and the extremist clerics preaching essentially revenge are much easier on his ears.

While Muslims need to be introspective to what their religion is doing, much like the Germans needed to be introspective, there is one more important simliarity. The recognization of what created and fed the Waffen SS, and the Muslim Extremists, were and are both external causes that the moderate and regular people have little control over. If we, as Americans, actually want to 'win' this 'war on terror' we have to realize that our actions can both combat muslim extremism, but they can also feed it. The Bush administration does not see this distinction, as always, and sees only black and white. Destroy them, or totally capitulate. Fortunately there is a third way. A way that America doesn't capitulate and does actively engage in and fight terrorists, but also one where we actually think abotu what we're doing and how it might actually hurt us more than help us by creating more terrorists in the long run.

Just my 2 cents.

[CJCRANE]

5. If Clinton

were still President, or the votes had been counted in 2000 and Gore was president, there wouldn't be this vast increase in islamic fundamentalism.

On 9/11, three thousand people died and America had the sympathy of the world.

Then "Shock and awe" killed thirty thousand Iraqi civilians, and from then on the arabs had the sympathy of the world. Not to mention Abu Ghraib, Fallujah etc.

[Ravenseye]

6. You're exactly right

There's no question the anger was there prior to Bush, and even if Gore had been President 9/11 may still have occurred. What happened afterward though would most likely have been wildly different.

The 9/11 attack shocked the muslim world, and could have really been used as a wake up call. Instead our policies grew more aggressive towards the muslim world. If we had limited ourselves to Afghanistan, concentrated on removing the Taliban, and captured bin laden, then began an aggressive economic campaign to redevelop the country after it's decades of war, who knows where we'd be today.

The amount of sympathy and good feelings we squandered and turned into active hatred against us is incalculable.

[bridgit]

9. correct imo as well...

[Igel]

7. Two things are needed, though.

First, why "Muslim" is so supranational, when the usual approach is not to have religious identity trump all others (at least for some people).

Second, a definition of 'attack'. Apparently some Muslims in Malaysia feel that they are under attack by what happened in '48; others are under attack because a woman decided to convert to Xianity; others are under attack because of what somebody says.

That's an interesting view. I'm a Slavist; I study things Slavic, mostly the languages, and consider that part of my identity. Somebody cracks a Polish joke, should I feel justified in defending myself against their attack?

Of course not. The problem is the ideology that promotes loyalty to an ideology above all and stipulates that trivial offences are 'attacks'. In this, the writer implies the obvious when he could have said it explicitly:

'In 1933 (and I have specifically chosen a period well before wartime atrocities began) there were 52,000 members in the Waffen-SS within a population of 66 million Germans. "The Waffen-SS comprised a ridiculously small minority of Germans" or "All members of the Waffen-SS were Germans."' He should have continued: However, the problem could not be solved by addressing all Germans, nor simply addressing the members of the Waffen-SS; nor could it be accounted for merely by looking at local frustrations: one had instead to take into account the ideology behind the SS, and to thoroughly discredit the ideology to prevent further recruitment. Recruiters that could not be disuaded needed to be silenced.

[Igel]

8. I didn't know there were two

large and distinct schools of Buddhism. Should have, since I heard of Mahayana Buddhism (I assume 'yana' means 'wheel') and should have assumed there was a contrast.

Probably should read up on Buddhist history. Right after 25 other, more pressing, things.

Tx for posting.

On edit: I wonder if this accounts for a bit of the "Buddhist monks riot" in Sri Lanka thread a week or two ago.