"only the Muslim extremists are murdering people with whom they don't agree.  They are still living in the Dark Ages and want to drag us all back there with them."
May I submit this argument? If they had nuclear aircraft carriers w/ f-18 superhornets parked off our coast, and were willing and able to blast your house at will, and invade your house in the middle of the night, dragging your wife and daughters out of their beds looking for weapons, and all you could do is support some little program that included IED's and AK-47's, it would look at lot different to you. If that were the case, I too would kill every muslim I came into contact with, using anything I could get my hands on, and appear to be living in the dark ages, and they would call me barbaric. When we kill civilians, it's just "collateral damage", when they do, it is "terrorism". There's not ANY difference, save that we have some hardware they don't. It's just human nature, and we all have a lot more in common with the likes of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot than we are often willing to admit.

-- Modified on 3/20/2013 7:22:36 AM

First, I am not a Catholic. Lapsed Jew to be exact.

That said, there is a difference in war and terror, even thought the war may be a mistake. (That is solely for the sake of argument and not on the merits.)

The U.S. never target a civilian bus on purpose.  The U.S. never targeted a mosque.  At the end of the initial invasion of Baghdad, there was an incredible lack of damage to civilian targets.

Most of the mosques and cafes and markets blown up in Iraq were by Iraqi insurgents.  

Every target of Moslem terror is intenionally a civilian target - buses, cafes, markets.

As to the Catholic Church burning more civilians, that happened in the inquisition was in the late 1400's, about 600 years ago.  

At that time, the world was like that.  Yes, the Church led the Crusades, but the reason the Alhambra is in Grenada is that the Moslems attacked Christian Spain.  

If you want to judge the Church by the standards of 1400, then judge Moslems by  that standard also.

Yes, I heard of that. You have to go back 800 years to find the same thing with the church.

Now, let's jump ahead to 1700.  How many people did the church burn from 1700 to 1800?

Talk about living in the past

Whenever anybody says "NEVER", it's such an easy playground.

"The U.S. never target a civilian bus on purpose.  The U.S. never targeted a mosque"

Do you want some time to retract? I'll wait........I won't even take the time to google it..................

Germany?.......................
Japan?............................
Vietnam?.........................

That's right, we are different now........................Then it was total war, right? I' no bleeding heart either, I'm a US Marine. You know..Kill em all, let god sort em out.
Problem is, to them, they are at such a disadvantage, IT IS TOTAL WAR. we are trying to play "nice guy" because world opinion matters to our economic status. However, if YOU were at such a disadvantage, and did nothing, you are a coward. Do you think they should care about your children, when even the slightest mishap, kills theirs? Of course they hit the soft targets. To them, you do too.

-- Modified on 3/20/2013 11:36:43 AM

Thing is: When they attack, you think "Muslim extremist", it's what you're government and media have tagged onto it.
When we attack, they think "Christian Zionist", it's what their government and media have tagged onto it.

I suspect there are only a few "extremists" and quite a few pissed off citizens on both sides. So, we bomb, and invade, because we can. They bomb and blow up, because they can. If the zealots on both sides weren't part of the equation, what would we call each other? Imperialists and Socialists? Capitalists and Communists?

-- Modified on 3/20/2013 11:56:34 AM

First, the Moslem support of terror goes beyond attacking because we have subs off their coast and are in their country.

They kill each other.  They blow up mosques and markets in Pakistan, which we did not invade.  They burn churches in Nigeria.  They have blown up subways in London and Madrid.

Did the people in the night club in Bali attack an Islamic country?  Christmas eve 2000 in Indonesia? Phillipines, Russia, China?????

And I am not even mentioning buses and cafes in Isreal.

In fact, the irony of Moslem terror in Iraq is that the Moslems were not killing our troops because we invaded.  That I could understand.  Rather, they were blowing up their mosques and their markets and their cafes.  The Golden Mosque in Iraq.  That was a Moslem holy place. Not an American military target.

To use your example, if Iraq invaded us and did all the things you mentioned, would you blow up the American church down the street?

Second, your cause and effect is funny.  There was an attack on the U.S. Embassy long before we invaded, as was the first World Trade Center bombing, and 9-11 was also before that.   (In fact, you probably would have a better argument that we attacked them second).

And I love the way they treat women.  An Egyptian expert in family matters explained that if a man beats his wife, he should try to explain why she deserved it.  Honor killings?  Acid in the face of girls who go to school.

The things I mentioned is another reason they hate us, not excuses. When they kill each other, or bomb civilians in Israel, what is that to us? We shouldn't be the worlds police. Supply arms if you believe a people to be repressed maybe, but stay out. If they cannot or will not fight for their own freedom, fine. And, yes, when they attack us....TOTAL war, including conquering lands and recovering commodities. That doesn't mean Iraq, where we were lied to leading to limited war. There are a few crazies here killing people for no apparent reason, should China attack? Join some peace corps if you want to change how they treat their women. I'm saying we are creating more enemies by invading their land in a half hearted way. The civilians in Iraq seemed okay with overthrowing Saddam, but invading their homes has been a disaster. The first Bush was the wise one: Spank their ass, then practice in their backyard to keep them in check. Bush 2? Iraqi Freedom? Elections?  Please.

You ask, "when they kill each other....what is that to us?"

It is not what it is to us.  Frankly it is no skin off my nose or any other place if they kill 1,000 of each other.  It is what does it say about them. If they bomb mosques in Islamabad, if they bomb subways in Madrid, it they bomb nightclubs in Bali and schools in Russia, what does it say about them?

I am not talking about how they fight war.  We can differ on that. I am talking about how they live with non-war.  

And it is so not Iraq.  All the places I mentioned are not Bush or our war or anything else.  It is them. It isn't that Bush lied so people in Nigeria kill people who watch soccer games on television.  They do that regardless of Bush. But he is so easy to blame.

It isn't whether we should be the world's police.  I am not saying we should, and I did not say we should go into Pakistan.  

Don't put words in my mouth.

Finally, it is not "a few crazies."  There are a few crazies in the U.S. who every 15 years do something like the Oklahoma City bombing.  The "few crazies" in the Islamic world are too numerous to mention.

And what is worse is that with thousands and thousands of people that they kill, where it the "Responsible Opposition."  When a Christian does something wrong there are letters of conemndatinon and editorials by the thousands.  A Shiite bombs a Sunni market and silence rings from every Univiersity and Mosque from Jordon to Indonesia.

Someone writes a book and there are fatwahs of death.  
Somone places a bomb, and silence.

Has there ever been a mass protest in the Moslem world against bombing a subway in London or a club in Bali?

You keep tying it to either us or Isreal "attacking."  The problem is that the violence precedes those events.  Likewise, the violence is not all directed at the US or Isreal.

They aren't attacking "Christian Zionists."  they are attacking Russians and Chinese and Bali and Madrid. They are attacking and killing Moslems in Pakistan and Jordan.  They are blowing up church and murdering nuns in Nigeria.
It is not a "few" Moslems involved.  There are hundreds of attacks in scores of countries and they are never conemned by the "mainstream" Moslems.  There was never an editorial in the Egyptian press condemning the bombing of markets in Pakistan or the Golden Mosque.

But if you say it is us attacking then you have to eliminate 80% of the attacks that have nothing to do  with us.