Islam (Religion)

by Carl, Thursday, September 18, 2008, 02:04 (5909 days ago) @ David Turell

The point of the 150,000,000 was to show the absurdity of violence as a solution, not that you had proposed violence on such a scale. There are an enormous number of Muslims, and they are very cohesive when faced with any non-Muslim threat.
When you have a specific enemy, such as Ben Laden, then by all means attack him directly. But al-Qaida is an idea more than a group of people. You have to fight ideas with ideas. It will expand or contract in proportion to the attractiveness of the idea. So far, the idea is not so popular. Muslims agree with pushing back against the West, but not with Ben Laden's tactics.
I visualize Sharia law working something very much like binding arbitration with some small tweaks.
I consider revenge murder or rape of women and children egregious enough to justify diplomatic intervention no matter where it happens. At some point, the international community must devise a way of forceful intervention in situations such as Dafur. Humanity is better than that. As far as US executions, they reduce our moral standing in the world, but it is still our right.
"The lack of response in the Clinton administration to the first Tower bombings, the Cole, etc., made bin Laden feel we were a weak paper tigers and lead directly to the second Tower bombings."
I share your frustration that Clinton fired .5 billion dollars of cruise missiles at Afghanistan and blew up some mud huts and considered it closed. But the reason Bin Laden attacked again is because a clever man spotted a hole in our security you could fly a 747 through. Americans were so impatient that they would not tolerate decent security practices, and the prohibition of communication between the CIA and FBI goes back to Watergate. Unanticipated consequences. Ben Laden was coming at us any way he could no matter what Clinton did.
The Israel/Palestinian struggle is a tragedy viewed from any direction. What is needed is a truly wise person to devise a mutually acceptable solution. Some times a stronger defense just raises the ante. Diplomacy is the solution.