3rdnlng Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 Excellent post. Thank you for your thoughtful and reasoned reply. What I'm failing to see though, and it might be here I'm just missing it, is what your proposed solution is? You ask for the Westernized Muslims to speak out (and I argue they have, quite loudly) -- but what would you have them do? Most of the Westernized Muslims no longer live in the Middle East or Asia. They can't do much more but speak out. The ones who you need to reach to enact real change are the ones living under the thumb of these fundamentalist regimes. The same folks that Western governments have done a masterful job of completely fu*king over when sh*t hits the fan (see: Desert Storm and the Kurds/Shi'ites, Afghanistan and the Mujahideen in the 80s and 90s). The educated in these nations have a long history to look back on demonstrating exactly how much the West cares about their plight. And it's only gotten worse post 9/11. When half of the world is calling for the extermination of your religion, how do you identify your friend from your enemy? Look through this thread at some of the gems casually tossed out on here from some folks (nuke 'em all, wipe them all out etc, etc) and tell me where the outraged silent majority is supposed to turn? What you're suggesting is that these people who are living under the thumb of fundamentalist regimes should speak up ... but when they do, the West doesn't listen. My only dog in this fight is the notion that the answer is an extermination or a full on war against Islam. In reality Western civilization has been engaged in a direct and indirect war against Islam for over 900 years. Tom's post above about the legacy of colonialism speaks more to my point -- the enemy isn't a religion, it's a legacy. A legacy of invasion, forced conversion and contempt for a sector of the world who the west deemed as savage. Thinking Islam is the enemy is what got us into this mess as a civilization. It's not going to provide the solution -- otherwise it would have already. Instead, all it does is reinforce the negative stereotypes of the Great Satin. You may read that as a continuation of the victim mentality -- and you'd have a point -- but it doesn't make it any less true. You say the silent majority needs to speak up in order to enact meaningful change. I agree with you on that. What we need to do is help them speak out. And you don't help the situation by continuing the same backwards thinking that has been going on since the Crusades. I don't recall anyone suggesting that nuking or exterminating Muslims is the answer. I personally am all for getting rid of dependence upon the middle east for oil. After that we can leave them to their own devices with the exception of harboring terrorists and WMD's. Keep them in line with the threat of using oil AGAINST them. Countries financing terrorism can do it with $20 a barrel oil instead of $100 a barrel oil. See how far they get. We have the ability to keep a lid on things if we have the balls to do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GG Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 I'll add a fuller response later, but what happened in Lybia today is exactly what needs to continue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chicot Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 I don't recall anyone suggesting that nuking or exterminating Muslims is the answer. I personally am all for getting rid of dependence upon the middle east for oil. After that we can leave them to their own devices with the exception of harboring terrorists and WMD's. Keep them in line with the threat of using oil AGAINST them. Countries financing terrorism can do it with $20 a barrel oil instead of $100 a barrel oil. See how far they get. We have the ability to keep a lid on things if we have the balls to do so. I think you need to go back and read the post by "TakeYouToTasker" on page 2 of this thread. I'll add a fuller response later, but what happened in Lybia today is exactly what needs to continue. I don't think anyone here would disagree with that but the question is what is the best way of supporting and encouraging that sort of thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dayman Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 Breaking News Pakistan minister offers $100,000 bounty for death of maker of anti-Islam film - AFP bit.ly/OLAHiH 11 minutes ago from breakingnews.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdnlng Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 I think you need to go back and read the post by "TakeYouToTasker" on page 2 of this thread. I don't think anyone here would disagree with that but the question is what is the best way of supporting and encouraging that sort of thing. I didn't really take TYTT seriously with his post, only because I'm familiar enough with the tenor of posts that the post you are citing seemed out of character. It would be sort of like reading a post from BF4E that made sense---you would automatically know that he was joking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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