Thomas: With all due respect, I think communists were forced to defend their aggressions with the contention that they were defending socialism. Few in East Europe, Austria, Greece, Iran, Tibet or N. Korea bought that line. Communists, Leftists, Socialists and similar thinkers bought into it. Fortunately, the US did not: the “Wall” is gone and the “Cold War” is history. With no offense intended, I find the similarity striking. My accusations toward islam have nothing to with the tenets of islam as offered by ilpars on another post. MY accusation is specific to the practice of islam as described by SWitebull on the Iran board. In addition to my prosecuting islamic clerics promising paradise and virgins to suicidal bombers as criminal, I accuse the “rank and file” muslims of the world of allowing their religion to be mutated into terrorism by their inaction. No amount of Politically Correct rhetoric or repetitious religious mantra can change the fact that terrorists commit heinous crimes in the name of islam, and the largest majority of muslims at best turn a blind eye. At worst, they enable and rejoice at the successes terrorists accomplish. At best, muslims are reduced to defending islam as ilpars does, at worst muslims hide behind Political Correctness, cultural differences and religion. I don’t buy it. We agree about islam’s need for a house cleaning, a reformation. When muslims walk out of a mosque because the mullah preaches violence, we will see the beginning of change. Until then, I intend to hold their feet to the fire and convert as many Americans as I can. It is unfortunate that ilpars cannot understand the difference between the tenets he offers, and islam as practiced.

ilpars: I get my information about islamic terrorists from the news wires, unfortunately, for decades now. The polio information from the UN. The slavery reports from both. The Indonesian beating and rescue from live reports. I spoke not about “class religion” and wonder how you think I did, unless it is my reference to slavery. US media is dominated by “Political Correctness”, a disease spawned by our University system, and seldom a source of negative information on terrorists or islam. So forget about the media feeding me information that contradicts your views. I agree that Protestantism, Reformation and Counter-Reformation produced immeasurable improvement in quality of life in Western culture, and allowed the culture to expand into the Renaissance, which eventually led to the concept of individual freedom. Turkey does not prove my assertions wrong. Turkey is the exception that proves my point. Turkey is under attack from the same islamic terrorists as the “West”. “In your eyes”, a cleric preaching violence goes to jail, or should go to jail? I’m not sure of your meaning, but hope you are saying that they are prosecuted by the State and imprisoned. I am not biased. You defend your religion and your country, but your tenets are not practiced in the rest of the islamic world. Until muslims forcefully reject terrorism, until islamic culture as an entity prosecutes purveyors of hate, until peaceful muslims empty mosques that harbor terror, until muslims eliminate those preventing them from practicing your tenets, your only valid point is Turkey’s secularism. You use the tenets as proof that islam is peaceful and accuse me of bigotry and prejudice. I reply that I do not view facts through “rose colored” glasses!

to quote an imam at the religeous service for 911 victims "The perpetrators of this crime are no blievers in God!" And he is theologically correct: Islam holds suicide is an instant path to damnation. It also condemns victimizing women, children, or "people of the book" which includes other muslims, jews and christians. In order to get around this, radicals have to use tortured logic, and whenever possible they do not even use the language of the Holy Quran. There ae about 2 billion muslims in the world (although Muslims won't tell you that because they never count "everyone" - they only count the ones from similar denominations). It is both impractical and bad poicy to preach a doctrine of religeous separatism that forces all these people into the enemy camp. I have a Muslim siser in law who is as horrified as you are by the conduct of terrorists. Stop preaching hate - or you play into the hands of terrorists. THEY love it.

Where does that come from? It is false. Kelts (the C was theancient form of K and the Boston Celtics are really the Boston Keltics in Gaelic) are brown eyed and black or brown haired. Trust me, as a Kelt I have no prayer of a date in Iceland. ONLY blokd hair and blue eyes gets you there. The law protects ancient Norse, because that is the heritage of the country. It has the oldest legislature on the planet, and it practically diefies Norse tradition, not Keltic. But there is a similar theology - the Sun is the Chief of the Gods of the Day - kind of thing.

There is no such right. In fact, Mohannad invented women's rights. It was he who gave a woman the right to a divorce, for the first time in history, in any culture. It was he, not Jesus, who limited the number of wives a man could have - and the limit is zero if he cannot afford to take care of one. {Jesus tells a story of the man who tries to marry 24 women on one night - and actually does marry 12 - 'the wise and the foolish bridesmaids' - and King Soloman had 600 wives and 2000 concubines. Apparently it is Roman law than changed both Jewish and Christian practice. There is no scriptural justification for limiting wives except for deacons or bishops - both of which can only have one.

It is exactly that Islamist poison which pollutes mainstream Islam I have read this for the last time. SYSOPS will throw you out if I report this sort of thing - he does it all the time on the China board. This is racism, and it is against our rules. You may say what you please if it is not prejudiced and hostile - as this is. It is false, because you do not allow for devout muslims honoring the teachings of their denomination who take a different view. It is also politically unwise - it will cost us the war if you don't reform. The only good news is this: if the radicals win, they will so piss off everyone they will lose eventually. But why go down their road of hate? Dumb dumb dumb.

It is true. And false. It depends on the country. I went into a Muslim country on an op to rescue US citizens (I refuse to say "americans" because that applies to many nations) who were sold as slaves. But I have a file record of a case of sexual slavery (that is, organized slavery) in Calgary Alberta. It is a problem to some degree everywhere. Not one Islamic denomination in Canada, and not 10% worldwide, hold such a thing is proper. {Remember, slavery was legal in the USA until - what was it - 1868 - whenever Juneteenth happened in Texas. And it is STILL legal for prisoners in the USA - read the Constitution.]

The problem in the present age is that tiny minorities can use the net to find each other and organize. And the radical left is joining the Muslims. {Carlos the Jackel converted, for example]. The world of radical violent leftists has collapsed. It was a quasi religeious world to begin with. A top down control world too. So they find a chance to fight their old enemies too tempting to pass up. Most of the left has "sold out" for family and jobs. But the real hard core is going over to join the radical Muslims. In fact, the Al Qaida network prefers to work with people inside each target nation. This was is going to last a long time, because we must reduce the number of racicals to such a small number. Even 10,000 dedicated radicals worldwide is a problem. And surely there are more than that just in the West in the form of radical leftists willing to be terrorists and revolutionaries. But we will not begin to reduce their numbers if we "radicalize" the population. We must NOT preach anti-Islam. We must remember our Ceasar - "divide and conquer." Do not drive moderates into the enemy camp by wrongly giving them no alternative, and no honor, if they stay moderate.

Yeah, and break all the rules of Islam at the same time. It is like communism: in practice it uses ideology to decieve the naive. Does that mean there is no merit to anything ever said by a Marxist? Hardly - correlation of forces is so logical we all use it for policy analysis. Don't go along with abuse of language by acting as if you accept the radicals in their own terms. That is their hope and intent.

What exactly isn't allowed? You're accusing Appleciderus and others (presumably me too) of "racism" for being critical of Islam. I would be critical of Islam even if the 9-11 hijackers were Seventh Day Adventists. I would be critical of Islam even if there were no practicing Muslims on Earth. This isn't racism. This is examining a divergent worldview / philosophy / theology and rejecting it. Race has nothing to do with it.