Interesting argument but what is the point? Many of your examples are unrelated local national issues concerning separetism . The Russian issue in Chechnya is not tied politically, tactically or in any manner to Kashmir or Palestine. There is no collusion between the Govts. in these examples and no non Muslim overarching international political or theological driving force.

Islamic extremism does have a common thread though and a link internationally that knows no boundary and really is a different issue.

Haamid

Thanks for the reply and I will accomodate.

Regards,

awake

there are many who believe them [the crusades] to be a defensive response to violent Islamic expansion

Yes, of course. The murder of men, women and children was absolutely justified as a response to “violent’ Islamic expansion [Source: Jihadwatch History Channel]

Your double-standards to what reaction is justified and what is not, is what can be expected from a person with a warped sense of reality and history.

Count the number of dead Muslim civilians, killed by non-Muslims over the last 30 years, against the reverse, and it isn’t even in the same ball-park! So, you can keep going in circles, but numbers tell the story. The 75,000 killed in Kashmir, the 160,000 killed in Chechnya, the 4500 dead in Palestine (since 2000), the 100,000+ killed in Bosnia, and I could go on and on. Now go ahead and total those killed in terrorist attacks by Muslims. It’s not even close!

ignore the 800-pound gorilla sitting in your living room

300-pound of which is occupied by AIPAC and the Israeli lobby.

Like everythig else, you reap what you sow.

Yes, unfortunately, yes.

What was Islam’s excuse before the existence of western global imperialism of the 1950′s?

Never mind with the debate about the Crusades. there are many who believe them to be a defensive response to violent Islamic expansion so trying to persuade me there is moot.

I know it is much easier to pin the blame on others and ignore the 800-pound gorilla sitting in your living room, but that desire alone does not make it even remotely true.

Muslim civilians killed in Iraq are by the hands of other Muslims, by an overwhelming majority…not by coalition forces, but this drifts off topic quickly.

I am not here to defend the Iraq war, nor do I suport it. I did support it to the extent of taking out Hussein, but in hindsight, it caused the destabilization that warranted the folly of nation-building by the US, lest the vacuum of be filled by Iran.

Historically speaking, what country was Bush and the US invading right before 9/11 that drew Bin Laden’s response?

Sitting back on our heels waiting and hoping this all gets worked out in short order in the Muslim community is no longer an option.

If you read Mr. Elibiary’s responses on the JW thread he linked, he calls for respectful debate. This is exactly the accomodation he did not give Robert here in this thread, by attempting to render him a weak and ineffective “Islamophobe”, with little to no substantive reasoning behind it.

Like everythig else, you reap what you sow.

Does a child growing up in Rabat, Ramallah, Baghdad or Karachi have any less of a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” than one born in Tel Aviv, London, NY or LA?

If the answer’s yes, then don’t bother wasting your breath. If the answer is no then they recognize that grand human rights come from God, inalienable and as MLK Jr. said “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere”. One can only build on common ground, with it everything else is just geo-politics built on power dynamics and unsustainable propaganda.

Salaam,

Yeah I think it’d be easier to have the dialogue on one thread at a time, so I don’t mind picking up at JW after this post.

In short to answer your $64,000 question, there’s a concept in Islam called “al-walaa and al-baraa”. I posted on the JW thread you know on Feb 9th at 9:03pm on this. I agree with you that getting “rebellious” Muslims to understand when its permissible to declare war and peace, who has the authority to do that and what methods of warfare are permissible is the crux of the matter.

The Christian West can not reform the Muslim East, it can only react and if things continue simply capitulate eventually. And I hope you figured out, that’s not the paradigm honest Islamicly oriented Muslims desire. As I stated on JW “Islam is a divine religion, not a Machiavellian cult cutting corners according to every individual self-described Muslim’s ijtihad to build some territorial empire.”

This is why I’ve written Op-Eds, advised policy makers, think tanks, lectured at numerous universities and briefed senior national media folks that instead of us (Americans) chasing down an impossible path playing the role of “Islamic Reformer” we should concentrate our efforts to synchronize our own public policies to judge Islamic authorities (whether Scholars or Activist Movements) according to where they stand on those 3 points I outlined above.

In an age where communications networks are ever expanding and technology super-empowers the networked individual, I don’t want to fight Al-Qaeda as:

1. simply a law enforcement operation investigating the post attack bomb site,

2. I don’t want to turn our free society and the whole globe into a “survailed” entity where civil liberties diminish as the only pro-active (being on offense) approach to fighting terrorism,

3. I don’t want to debate with Al-Qaeda on their territory the acceptable methods of warfare in an asymmetrical battlefield because its easier for them to claim that moral clarity equals Muslim battlefield loses

4. I want to simply undercut their whole ideology by pointing to the “fact” that their whole declaration of war fatwa is illegitimate and that Osama and Ayman don’t have the authority as “wali amr al-Muslimeen” to declare the Jihad (fight in this case) in the first place. Everything that comes afterwards in the debate is a side-show.

If we’re able to as concerned Americans to synchronize our message, then our foreign policy in this national security sphere becomes something that would find allies from all the mainstream Islamic authorities (whether Scholars or Activists) as well as Muslim governments in a rock-solid coalition against “violent extremism”.

But instead we’re still debating “toquiya”, “jihad” or “sharia” on JW or in the Right Wings echo-chambers (ex. talk radio).

Wallahu A3lam (God knows better), but these are just simple thoughts off the top of my head while I’m watching Egypt win its 6th African Cup (soccer) title.

Salaam,

There is only one main obstacle…figure out a way to eliminate violence by Muslims to which they lay claim to support by the Qur’an, Hadith and Sira, without stripping the Qur’an (specifically) of its perceived divinity by Muslims. Now that is the $64,000 question.

Concurrently, let’s also figure out a way to eliminate the violence that is killing far more Muslims in the name of states, i.e. state-terrorism. Which Quran, hadith or Sira, or let’s say Talmudic or Biblical texts are being used to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq, Chechnya, Kashmir, Burma and so on and so forth?

And let’s also remove the historical myopia. Why is it that terrorism has come into vogue among Muslims only recently (in 1400 years of Islamic history)? Were Hitler, Stalin, the Crusaders Muslims? Could one perhaps make that great leap (not great by an reasonable standards, which are not islamophobic standards of course) that there is an opposite and sometimes equally evil reaction to large-scale oppression against Muslims around the globe? When the West + Israel STOPS feeding the terrorist propaganda by stopping its own terrorism and large-scale assault on human freedoms and dignity, I believe that moderate Muslims like us will have a bigger opening in peeling off the extremists lies used to create “Muslim terrorists”.

I love it when Islamophobes paint a picture where Muslims somehow just become willful agents of violence without any provocation or any wrongdoing committed by the poor Westerners and Israelis! Oh, before you jump on this as a justification for terrorism, let me be clear that there there is not! But only fools cannot see the connection. Remove the root-cause, choke the supply of daily photos and stories of the dead and maimed innocent civilians in the name of “western democracy” and “war on terrorism” that is feeding the extremist frenzy, and normal human beings will stop becoming monsters. Simple as that.