"Mysterious Traveler" wrote in message
news:376dnb9-

stuff snipped

You might find yourself in a situation
someday where you need help and a little kindness from a caring person
could be just what you need to get by. That's what makes the Christian
religion better than Islam. Islam doesn't have any outreach programs for
people who need help. If one of them gets in a situation where their
life is messed up, they're shunned, banned, stoned to death, outcast, as
far as they care, you don't exist.

While I'm not a lover of any organized religion (especially Islam), I'm
afraid I've got to call you out on this last statement. One of Islam's
"five pillars" (the third one) is all about charity:

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/46/

"Giving charity to those who deserve it is part of Muslim character and
one of the Five Pillars of Islamic practice. Zakat is viewed as “compulsory
charity”; it is an obligation for those who have received their wealth from
God to respond to those members of the community in need."

Islam did not begin compulsory charity. Judaism has the tzedakah which both
obligates the wealthy to give to the poor and affirms the right of the poor
to receive these gifts. It is more a duty than an option. The Jews are
supposed to gave to all those in need, both neighbors and strangers. In
both religions (not surprisingly since they are descendants of Abraham) it
was your duty, if blessed, to bless others - to give away some of what God
gave to you.

When Christ came along, he broadened the original Jewish view of charity.
The needs of the poor became the responsibility of everyone, not just the
wealthy. Many consider this the birth of modern social welfare, both public
and private.
When Islam was born, Jewish and Christian philosophy heavily influenced
early Muslim thought. The Muslims divided charitable giving into two types:
the compulsory giving (zakat) and voluntary giving (sadaqah) for social
welfare.

That said, I still worry profoundly about the aspects of Islamic culture
that are at loggerheads with our own beliefs, particularly freedom of
speech. We can show a South Park episode making fun of Jesus with little
fanfare, but when Mohammed is ridiculed, fanatical Muslims go on killing
sprees. The issue now is that we've allowed enough Muslims into the country
to make it a problem that has very few good solutions. Remember, though, a
lot of Muslims are here to escape the fanatical regimes of their home lands.
Many have been of great assistance in tracking down their hard-core brethren
because they know fanatics are a threat to them as well as us non-Muslims.

I believe that most Muslims, like most Christians, are very, very
uncomfortable at seeing disparaging representations of their spiritual
leaders, but they wouldn't kill over it. It's the idiotic few that make
trouble for the rest. I do have a great fear that all this hatred will
become the foundation for a third WW. We've repeated Vietnam, we've come
awfully close to repeating the Great Depression. WWIII could easily be the
next on this list of "stupid things humanity does repeatedly." It's why I'd
much rather find a way to iron out our differences peacefully. There have
been long epochs of peace in the world - but it takes determination to
achieve such peace.

What worries me the most is how easily people use terms like "the war on
terror" as if it were a real war. Real wars are the ones where you wake up
in the morning wondering whether you and your family will be dragged out of
your house and be shot that day, or be dragged off to a resettlement camp or
find yourselves with new, unelected leaders determined to eventually drive
you from your homes and quite possibly to your graves.

Real war is men and women eating rats and sawdust bread during the siege of
Stalingrad. It's V1 and V2 rockets and waves of heavy bombers flying over
Britain, night after night, killing thousands and terrorizing millions.
Real war is having your entire city (Dresden, Hiroshima, London, Berlin or
Tokyo) nearly burned to the ground. Real war is losing everything you hold
dear: your family, your possessions, your house, your town, your country
and your entire way of life. Despite Pearl Harbor, the WTC and even the
British invasion and burning of the Whitehouse, the US has NOT experienced
the worst effects of real war. We've always managed to fight them on
someone ELSE'S home ground.

Ask an elderly Russian, Brit, German, Japanese person about the horrors of
war. When I see History Channel shows about WWII, I am always amazed at how
these old soldiers still choke up in tears when they remember the horror of
a real war. How they cry like babies when they think of young friends who
fought and died by their side. Dead friends who never had the chance to
build a life, a family or a career because they got their heads blown off on
some dinky little South Pacific island covered in black sand and worthless,
except as a grave for thousands of poor kids from Brooklyn, from Omaha, from
little towns and farms all across the country. I always wonder who died out
there in those bug-infested jungles: The guy who would have cured cancer?
The guy who would have discovered a new, pollution free energy source? The
next Abraham Lincoln? We'll never know for sure, but based on how many
already successful people died in the war, we've certainly robbed ourselves
of at least a few great men.

I wasn't really a peacenik until I married an Army reservist. Now that I've
met a lot of her friends I realize that people who are willing to die to
protect our country and way of life are a precious resource that we
shouldn't squander chasing shadows or acting out political agendas.
Contrary to the insane assertions I've read here that "people join the
military to kill, kill, kill", my wife joined to help, help, help and became
an expert at civil affairs and rebuilding war-ravaged countries. I've seen
her cry for days on end when someone in her unit or an old friend is killed.
Many of them were fellow Reservists, away from their "day job" here in the
states and definitely not special operators straight out of a Hollywood
movie, anxious to die in glory. They weren't even professional soldiers.
They were managers, cops, welders, nurses and engineers who had joined to be
emergency "muscle" but turned out to be primary war fighters in the new
all-volunteer Army. Sorry to hit you with this sermon, but it's been
simmering for a while since I read those comments about "they volunteered,
so it's OK for them to die."

The Pakistan floods, as terrible as they are, represent an enormous
opportunity to reach out to Islam and show that we know how to help.
Nothing builds allies more than offering a hand to people when they are so
deeply in need. That's REAL nation building, not forcing democracy on
people from the barrel of a gun. South Korea treats at least some American
veterans of the Korean conflict better than we do.

--
Bobby G.