I'd Hate to be a Muslim

[Escalate]

american cultural hegemony threatens every value held by traditionalist muslims (and in this respect, these fundamentalists aren't so different from our localized chicken littles o'reilly, robertson, et al)

both the methods and goals are wrong. the vast majority of people do not deny this (and all your hand-wringing about "PC" is just a straw man). but- to claim that the motivation isn't there or isn't valid from their perspective is to deny the reasons why the situation is... what it is.

islamic fundamentalists are very different from people like robertson, and especially people like o'reilly. they are similar in that they don't respect the cultural values of others, but they are very different in that robertson et al do not condone random violence to achieve their goals. This is not an insignificant difference. supporting a war on a government where civilian casualties are an undesired consequence is not the same as supporting the random murder of everyday citizens in a terror campaign. Obviously both are terrible, but to say they are the same thing is quite a stretch.

The educated, enlightened, but politically correct individual (whether muslim or otherwise) is not a straw man, but a very real man, and one that exists in significant number. For whatever reason, these individuals choose not to publicly acknowledge the depth of the issues that Islam, as a whole, has. When I get lumped into a larger group, namely "americans", that happen to be widely hated around the globe for their imperialist ways, it drives me to do something about it. I've marched in anti-war protests because I want it to be known that not all americans are back hills, red-state morons. Compare the number of anti-bush, anti-war demonstrations in the United States to the number of anti-terror demonstrations by muslims around the world.

I understand why Europeans say hateful things of America, and I understand why they lump me in, because its my responsibility to do something about how the culture that I am a member of acts. Until the reasonable side of Islam acknowledges the depth and breadth of the problem in their organization they will not act, and their silence will continue to support the militant segment of Islam. People, unfortunately, for the most part are creatures of self interest. While it is easy for reasonable muslims to ignore the hateful speech of obvious racist idiots, when educated and reasonable people begin criticizing a larger group that they belong to, action is encouraged.

I understand that Islam is not a government and is not centralized. That does not mean that a widespread outcry for an end to terrorism by reasonable muslims around the world would not have a profound effect on the support base of militant Islam.

[froedrick]

I don't know/care if someone already mentioned this, but McVeigh didn't blow up the building as a religious statement. He did it because the government was slowly taking away our civil liberties and no one seemed to care. Most of this was brought on by the incident in Waco where Janet Reno ordered the ATF to break down the walls of David Koresh's compound without a warrant or just cause (illegal search and seizure), even though Koresh had previously invited the government in to do a search and take a gander at what was going on. There are a few other reasons, but that's the main one, he felt the government was gaining too much power. And when you give the government power, it will use it.

You should read a book called "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" by Gore Vidal. He talks about this event in there and actually adds in excerpts from personal letters McVeigh wrote to him while in prison. It's a pretty interesting book, and it isn't very long, still no pictures though .

Not how I meant it