Tim Daneliuk wrote:
wrote:

OK - I'll leave it at this: You're right, I'm wrong.

We English speakers can know little or nothing about what is going on in
the rest of the world based on their witness to us in their English
websites, newspapers, broadcasts, and other public utterances.

We could do as you suggested and go to: http://memri.org

and get a sampling from the islamic world.

I stipulate that there is too much support for violent jihad.

But we also find:

"The Muslim Brotherhood has never spoken any other language but the
language of Koranic punishments and of rigid, cruel Salafi Islamic
violence. They have always been opposed to Islam that is merciful,
peaceful, and beautiful, since, in their opinion, it is not Islam - the
only [real] Islam and the only truth are those of the Muslim
Brotherhood...

***

Tahhan: "To read the Koran rationally is to accept that the Koran is
open [to interpretation] and has many meanings. The tradition regards
the Koran as one-dimensional and fixed. This approach is not
rationalist. To be a rationalist is to accept that each era, with its
[particular] methods and discoveries, presents its own reading of the
Koran, and this is the way it will be until the end of days. To be a
rationalist is to acknowledge that the orthodox approach is
fundamentally wrong since it does not accept the multiplicity of
readings."

***

"Some say that Arab soil produces only Islamist or dictatorial regimes.
We say that there is a third way - the way of reform, liberalism, and
democracy, which is the way desired by millions of Arab citizens who
dream of living in freedom and dignity like other human beings...

***

Director General of Al-Arabiya TV in Defense of President Bush's
Description of London Bombers: 'They Are Fascists'

In an August 14, 2006 article titled "They Are Fascists" in the London
daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, the paper's former editor-in-chief and current
director general of Al-Arabiya TV, Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, defended
President George W. Bush's description of the individuals who were
arrested last week before they could carry out their plan to blow up
passenger airplanes.

The following are excerpts from the article, in the original English:

"The Protesting Groups... Would Have Done Better to... Denounce the
Deeds of Those Affiliated to Islam Who Harmed All Muslims and Islam"


***

The following is an op-ed, in the original English, by Ahmed
Al-Jarallah, editor of the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa. [1]

"Five years have passed by since the destruction of the World Trade
Centre in New York in one of the worst terrorist attacks in the world.
Although the United States has been able to prevent the spread of
terrorism since that fateful day, it has yet to succeed in its mission
of rooting out terrorism once and for all. This is because in the
aftermath of 9/11 terrorists have proved their ability to improvise
their methods, which has enabled them to continue their operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Fighting terrorism should not be the concern of only the United
States. We need an international alliance to combat this phenomenon
because terrorism is not targeting any one country. Terrorists are
active all over the world including the Arab and Islamic countries, and
Western Europe where Spain and Britain were the recent victims.

***

Saudi Arabia Ministry of Islamic Affairs Launches Arabic-English
Website to Fight Extremism

The Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs has announced the upcoming launch
of a website aimed at fighting extremism and to reform individuals with
extremist views. The website, which will have sections in Arabic and in
English, is aimed at Muslim audiences worldwide. It will include forums
for debating controversial issues like takfir (accusing other Muslims
of heresy) and al-walaa wal-baraa. [1]

***

Mujahideen Respond to "Mecca Charter"

On October 25, 2006 an Islamist website posted a response to the
agreement known as "The Mecca Charter" (wathiqat Mecca) which was
signed recently by Sunni and Shi'ite religious scholars in Iraq.[1] The
agreement calls upon all parties in Iraq to spare the lives and
property of all Muslims in the country, to avoid harming religious
sites, and to uphold the territorial unity of Iraq.

***

Christian Churches in Iraq Subjected to Synchronized Terrorism
By Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*

Introduction

In a synchronized act of terrorism on January 29, 2006, seven churches
were attacked - six by car bombs and a seventh, St. Joseph, in the
banking district of Baghdad, by explosives which caused no damage. Five
of the churches are located at various parts of Baghdad and the other
two in Kirkuk, northern Iraq. There were a number of casualties among
Christians and passer-by Muslims. [1]

***

"While [almost] every Muslim community in the world has produced jihad
fighters for Al-Qaeda and [similar] organizations, there is one Muslim
community that has had no part in this phenomenon. This Muslim
community is the second largest in the world: the Muslim community in
India.

"This community of more than 150 million people... is the only Muslim
community which has not [produced] a single individual who left the
country to plan and take part in violent actions that are labeled by
their perpetrators as 'jihad' while the [rest of the] world calls them
'terrorism.' ...

"The most important point is that India has proven that when Muslims
(like any other human beings) exist in a public climate that allows
them full participation in political life, they do not turn to
underground activities... and they do not leave [their country] to blow
up a plane, a train or a bus full of innocent civilians..."

***

Egyptian Intellectuals Speak Out Against the Muslim Brotherhood
Movement and its Slogan 'Islam is the Solution'
By A. Shefa**.

***

Hizbullah Recruits Children Barely 10 Years Old

According to Roz Al-Yusuf, "Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000 innocent
children aged 10-15 to form armed militias. Before the recent war with
Israel, these children appeared only in the annual Jerusalem Day
celebrations, and were referred to as the 'December 14 Units,' but
today they are called istishhadiyun ['martyrs']..."

***

"This prohibition against targeting civilians... was not the result of
a choice on the part of the jurisprudents, nor was it a matter of
preferring an overriding common interest. Holy texts forbade targeting
the majority of these groups in Prophetic statements and divine
revelation. This raises the severity of this prohibition in the soul of
every believer to the highest level of warning lest they violate it...

"If religion forbids killing these [civilians] in [the case of] the
outbreak of war, is it imaginable that this would be permitted in a
case where war has not broken out?...

"This distinction between fighters and civilians with regard to whom
one is allowed to kill is a venerable wisdom which derives from a
profound philosophy that is dedicated to respecting the human soul,
which Islam has come to remedy. How can it go about annihilating the
soul, when it wants its good?" [4] ...

"[Al-Qaeda's] fatwa was wrong in considering American citizenship a
sufficient cause for killing American civilians and [Al-Gama'a
Al-Islamiyya] rejects [the idea] that everyone with American
citizenship is an infidel, since having American citizenship does not
require adherence to another religion apart from Islam, and does not
require [the adoption of] any belief contrary to one's religion, since
the First Amendment to the American Constitution specifies that
'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or
preventing the free exercise thereof.'

***
It seems that you mistook the fingers in your ears for
"deafening silence".

I do make the presumption while reaidng these artilces that
refering to an act as "terrorist" is a de facto condemnation
of that act, and referring to a person as "innocent" is a
de facto condemnation of those who victimize that person.

While I was already familiar with the other sources you cited,
I was not aware of MEMRI. Thank you for directing me to it.


We have no reason to be suspicious of 1+ Billion people who themselves
and their leaders remain mostly mute on the excesses of their own
radicals.

Now you have slipped from "deafening silence" to mostly mute.
Most everyone in the world is 'mostly mute' in the sense that
their opinoins are not published.

Care to see if anyone has polled Muslim leaders or Muslim clerics
worldwide? Oh, I almost forgot, you don't DO research.



They do not have an institutionalized hatred of the West and/or Israel.

Their most venerated clerics do not regularly call for violence against
the Christian/Jewish/Secular West.

Who are the most venerated clerics?


They are not winning the population war in Europe to the point where
they will shortly (less than 50 years) be the dominant culture and thus
shove Sharia law down the European's throats - a demand they are not
already making.

It is telling that you refer to the shifting demographics in
Europe as 'war'. Particularly when you consider that
almost all of the organized religiously targetted violence
in Europe wars in the 20th century, and especially the
most heinous, has been perpetrated by 'Christians'
against non-Chrisians, specifically semites.

But as to the Muslims taking over due to immigratino and
higher birth rates I guess that will happen in Europe
just like the Chinese and Catholics took over the US, right?

In a poll taken of British Muslims shortly after the
subway bombings 91% -were against the bombings,
only 2% agreed with what the suicide bombers did.
88% thought there was no justification in the Koran
for the bombings, but 5% thought there was.

When asked to select a response to the statement:

"Muslim clerics who preach violence against the West
are out of touch with mainstream Muslim opinon."
Nearly half - 46% - disagreed or strongly disagreed,
while 54% thought they were out of touch.

(SInce both of those answers mean the same thing
I _think_ the word 'not' was omitted from the last
choice in the article reporting the result.)

79% - agreed that the Muslim community must
take more responsibility for preventing young
Muslims from becoming bombers.

IOW, the ovewhelming majority of British Muslims
have adopted the same values IRT violent extremism
as their fellow Britons, have reconciled those values
with their religious beliefs (or vice versa as people
are prone to doing) even though they themselves
believe (correctly or not) that acceptance of violent
extremism is common in mainstream Islam.

But are they correct? Indonesia and India have the
two largest Muslim populations in the world. How
many hijackers of Sept 11 were from there? Zero.
How many Indian and Inonesian Muslims have been
arrested in the "War on Terror"? Zero and zero or
damn few, respectively. The fact is the majority of
practicing Muslims are no longer in the Middle East.
The extremists, are only a small minority even
there. If the mainstream of Islam is not defined by
the majority of practicing Muslims, how is one to
define it?

The problem is not their religion.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...391671,00.html


The multiple attacks on the World Trade Center, the USS Cole, the
Marines in Lebanon, the many suicide bombings in Israel, the attacks on
Kurds, Christians & Jews in their own lands, and the later attacks in
Spain and the UK are all just flukes of an otherwise civil and
nonthreatening religious/cultural worldview. In fact, in the past 6
years or so, these attacks are the fault of Bush/Blair whose evils
vastly exceed those of the Islamic world.

What was that about changing the subject?

I thought the issue in contention was the existance of,
then later the frequency of, public statements in
opposition to violent jihad in the Muslim world. I don't recall
anyone claiming there were no violent jihadis against whom
to direct that opposition, nor would you even consider falsely
attributting such a notion to me.

Perhaps that proposition was introduced by one of your
straw men?


I am utterly wrong in the propositions ... you've convinced me.


Glad to know it wasn't a wasted effort.

--

FF

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoisted_by_my_own_petard