I suspect that may be a miscommunication. He should have started a new sentence.

Malik, the important phrase there is distort justice. To automatically take a fellow Muslims side, regardless of what he has done, seems a distortion to me and too many do it.

Is that what you meant jfk?

pope urban 2 wrote on Jun 19^th, 2008 at 6:51pm:

I agree with that, many muslims do take muslims side regardless of circumstance and because of ignorance.

but don't we do the same here in the west? the US and britain and the west in general has committed so many crimes in the middle east, africa, latin america and south east aisa, overthrown democracies, installed puppet governments who are brutal dictators, covert operations which resulted in the death of innocent people.. etc.. but we don't say anything about that and we stay silent over it..

i'm all for bringing people to justice, but it can't be one sided.. it has to be equal

Can you say that the middle east is not the same? You point out that 'the west' did not multilaterally invade Iraq. But when has the middle east ever acted in anything even remotely resembling unity? They disagree with each other all the time - more so than the west I'd imagine. Pointing to the mechanisms in place in the west is not a comparison if you have no idea how it all works in the middle east. Yes we speak up when our governments obviously go too far, but we are barely aware of the level of interference western governments have had in the middle east and elsewhere. We don't oppose war because we are in the wrong and we should stop screwing with other peoples with no regard for their interest. We oppose it because our soldiers die. To an outsider, it would look exactly like we ignorantly and unquestioningly support everything our side does.

You can hardly call that the middle east getting together. Egypt was the only 'respectably large' country against Israel wasn't it?

Makes MUCH more sense than a poor unarmed refugee being asked to settle a 100 year old war !!!!!!!!

Or God turning the clock back 1500 years to put a sword in the hands of an illiterate messenger again.

Is a good war strategy, use a peace treaty to give cover.
then murder those left.

uhuh - seems saudi have not studied islam either?
or syria , iran or any of the other islamics.

Go and tell them all about it.
They might prove you wrong, and me right.

Nice to see you don't answer my queries.
The life facts i prise from muslims about mohammad make us infidels blanche.

Where did saudi and syria get their laws from ?

what book ?

Acid Monkey wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2008 at 10:10am:



Be fair acid, you and the rest of us are not too different.
For the longest time I tried to be understanding of muslims, and rejected wholesale condemnation, and preferred we stick to laying blame only at the minority who actually are terrorists.
This is pretty much where you are at, and I do understand, and agree on an intellectual level, however, the realities of how pervasive the teachings and influence of the extremists has become, is being downplayed by the way we try to be more understanding, and ultimately, that is counter productive.

We must at some point stop putting our rights, and our societies norms aside, to placate muslims, and just step up and take ownership of our society, and deny them the right to diminish it.

I have not lived in muslim countries, but I do know people who did, as I mentioned previously, they lived in Iran, up to the time of the revolution, and they had respectful and caring relationships with many muslims.
They had to flee for their lives, and that is no euphemism, literally flee to avoid being murdered by former friends and neighbours, who were whipped into an irrational and frenzied hatred of all things, and all people, western. These were not wahabi extremists, these were moderate, good muslims, so to pretend that potential is not laying just beneath the surface of so many, is to deny the reality of our time.

You rightly point out that wahabism is very much a saudi thing, but you seem ignorant of the sphere of influence which their vast wealth affords them, in spreading the more extreme principles into the broader muslim community.
We even see it here in australia.

Here is a link to how even some uni's seek saudi money to fund islamic teaching.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23612878-7583,00.html

So while I appreciate your intentions are good, I fear that in attempting to be fair to Islam, you may be ignoring the degree of influence the extremists have, and the potential for that influence to be absorbed into mainstream, normal, moderate muslims behaviour.