Great points, Eric. But do they really negate the fact that Bush equals Hitler?

nor that Blair is Eva Braun

I love the idea that the U.S. is spreading democracy in the Arab world. This is the most ridiculous statement ever uttered.

The first thing any democratically elected Arab government would do is declare war on Israel. Therefore, the U.S. does not support democracy in the Arab world. Period.

If it did, it would just call up Egypt, for example, and tell it to hold an election--or risk losing its enormous U.S. aid package.

The U.S. is not going to do that. Because, again, it does not support democracy in the Arab world.

It really is that simple.

We do not support instant democracy for the reason you mention, but a graduated introduction of rule of law, individual right, separation of church and state, civic institutions, THEN representative democracy as Fareed Zakaria has wisely advocated.

This is a serious time. There are serious problems in the world and we need serious solutions. That's why I think we should lay Eric's points aside and confront the question we've all been avoiding--namely, was Hitler smarter than Bush? I ask you.

I'd just like to add that I find few things more amusing than Eric's persistent attempts to explain his position to the Indymedia/Democratic Underground crowd.

Keep it up, E. I think that breakthrough's gonna happen any minute now!

Hilarious. Now the implementation of democracy has been delayed slightly owing to a few obstacles. I love it. Keep it up.

You know, I'm not a violent man by nature. But I can't help wondering sometimes if the Middle East wouldn't be a Garden of Eden if every man, woman, and child in America who isn't voting for Dennis Kucinich were to be ritually slaughtered. Are you getting my point here, Eric? Let's "tone it down" on the whole Arabs-are-at-least-partially-responsible-for-their-being-the-most-backward-fucking-people-in-the-world thing, shall we?

Most backward in the world? Aren't there are still cannibals in New Guinea?

You're a racist and, I think, to a large extent, so is Eric.

Hmm. Could be. Not sure if there are any mass graves in New Guinea, though.

Well, okay. But what I really need to know is, are Eric and I more racist than Hitler? Or Bush? Not more than Bush!

Actually, I think Kuru (the equivalent of Mad Cow from eating human brains) took out the cannibals, or at least convinced most of them to cease the practice, proving that, at least, cannibals could be reasoned with.

proving that, at least, cannibals could be reasoned with.

Just needs a good lickin' that's all.

I have examined at great length my feelings toward Islam and the Arab world since 9/11, and I can say without hesitation I find certain cultural and religious tendencies there to be very dangerous, self-defeating and in need of drastic overhaul, but I find Arabs and Muslims not inclined toward those tendencies to be some of the most charming people on earth. I am not a racist, though I am perhaps a culturalist - there is a huge difference. Conversely, I find the artistic side of Arab-Islamic culture vastly appealing, so perhaps I am really speaking of political culture, and the authoritarian-militaristic-exceptionalist aspects of it that derive from Islam, or at least a certain reading of Islam.

And not that it matters, but I have had many Arab-American and Islamic-American friends over the years. Race has nothing to do with this. But then, mike, you call Bernard Lewis a racist also.

How would one express an utter contempt for a political culture without qualifying as a racist, I wonder?

I apologize, Eric, for calling you a racist: it was inappropriate and wrong. Please forgive me. It's as inexcusable as calling all critics of Israel "anti-Semitic."

NC is in my view a racist based on his many comments, but I don't he objects to that label. He's probably flattered by it.

Thanks mike, accepted. I think your parallel is apt, and in fact colored my interpretation of this story in the first place. How would I feel if "Jew" were substituted for "Arab" in the story? I wouldn't like it much and would have called it anti-semitic.

That's right NC, the Arabs are not responsible for the consistently evil, reprehensible actions coming from among them. Pretty near EVERY Muslim dominated government in the world radiates pure goddam evil.

Who is responsible for all this wickedness? I know- let's blame The Jews. Or perhaps Bush.

I'm sympathetic to not wanting to blanketly villify absolutely everyone in the region, but the evil pathologies are not just some few hundred or even a few thousand people. For whatever reasons, this bad stuff runs deep in their cultures at this point.

Your Kucinich thing was just pure nonsense. Neither America nor individual Americans have done anything even vaguely approaching the need for the kind of judgment you describe, either individually or collectively. You seem to want to set up some kind of moral equivalence that just isn't there.

See, WE are the GOOD GUYS, at least usually and mostly. We're certainly not evil, murderous genocidal haters like many in the Muslim world today. I know this is difficult for the liberal resenters here to accept, but it's truth.

Mike, I'm not so concerned with the "racist" label. In America, the word is largely a tool for intimidation rather than anything expressing useful meaning.

Different racial and cultural groups in fact exhibit clear, strong differential behavior patterns. You're just lying to yourself to pretend otherwise, or to pretend that they are all equally valid or moral.

It is significantly important to understand that general perfectly valid statements about the depravity of Muslim cultures does not necessarily apply to every single person of that region or religion.

This is an important distinction first because it is true, and it is not nice to villify the innocent. It is also important because lumping everybody there together doesn't leave them or us much room for trying to nicely work things out.

Still, a spade is a spade, and the Arab/Muslim world is contributing mostly hate and wickedness to the world today. Pretending otherwise does not solve any of the problems.

Just thinking of substituting "Jew" for "Arab" is bogus here because the resulting statements would not reflect truth, whereas the original Kilroy-Silk comments DO reflect truth.

I know this must be unpleasant for Arabs and Muslims to hear, especially those who are not like what Kilroy-Silk describes. Nonetheless, they are exactly the folks who must eventually confront the evil amongst them head on. Ultimately we are not doing even them any favor by sugar coating the situation, and helping them deny it as it festers and spreads.

Painful though it may be now, eventually it is the truth which will set them free.

That, and the US military. :)

Like Edward Said, I agree with you that Arab culture and society contains many, many backward elements. Said was attacked in this country for not saying these things; the joke was on his critics when they learned he'd been doing so for years, in the forums where it mattered: Arab media outlets, which were loathe to censor him (Arafat an exception) because of his immense prestige.

That's an example of putting your money where your mouth is. There's not a lot we can do in many cases about ignorant people and dictators throughout the world; what we can do is set an example
by making our democracy stronger at home.

That's where the GOP's hypocricy is most sickening: it talks about spreading democracy in the Arab world, but is undermining it at home through things like media consolidation and so on. The party doesn't walk its talk.

NC is in my view a racist based on his many comments, but I don't he objects to that label. He's probably flattered by it.

(Rolling agnostic eyes heavenward.) That is pure 'The White Man's Burden,' piffle. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Arabs, Asians, Africans, Indians, even buffalo, would be better off if Europeans had stayed in Europe. The very problems some of you cite to scream screeds of white supremacy from the roof tops are the fruits of slavery, colonialism and imperialism. Are many Second and Third world countries rife with problems? Yes. But, they didn't get that way because the people don't have white skin or aren't Christians. Historical circumstances, the worst of them often traceable to Europeans, explain why those countries are that way to a great extent.

I don't expect the U.S. to do a damn thing for Iraq, anymore than it has for Afghanistan, Somalia, Honduras, or even its so-called allies in the undeveloped world. This nation invades countries to pursue its own goals, not out of any desire to help poor benighted colored peoples.

And, personally, the day I need, say Al Barger, to bestow his 'wisdom' as a white man on me, I will have myself committed.

Roll your eyes all you want Diva, but that won't change the facts. It ain't the white guys (nor the Africans for that matter) who are reaching across the globe to randomly kill innocent men, women and children for thrills. It don't matter how much you resent white folk, the Americans (black and white and polka dotted together) are the main good guys in the world today.

I oppose the war. I also oppose terrorism. If the United States and other countries were taking limited, effective means of ending terrorist attacks, most memorably 9/11 types of massive gratuitous violence, I would be in favor of that. But instead, we are getting malarkey like the article Eric cited as justification for more imperialism, and yes, racism. When people start talking about how European cultures are 'better' than any others, that is precisely want they mean -- that white people are better than the colored peoples they have oppressed. And, most of those people don't know a thing about world history, as the idiot who wrote that piece demonstrates. Furthermore, no group of people is historically more guilty of savagery than the British. The French, Spanish and Portuguese aspired to that distinction but failed to do equal harm to rest of the world. But . . . but . . . but. . . you say, the British gave us the Magna Carta. They also gave us chattel slavery, genocide of most indigenous peoples, mercantile capitalism and the seeds of the neo-imperialism that still poisons most of the world. Then, the descendants of these people, still profiting from those abuses, turn around and claim they are morally superior. That is just plain delusional.

Eric, you should be ashamed of yourself for defending the white supremacist who wrote this balderdash.

Mike, you were right to criticize these Neandertals. I don't believe you should have taken it back.

i think much of the problem is the catch-22 thing:
if we don't go and interfere with Islamic states when they get too brutal, there will inevitably be people in those states who resent the West for leaving them to their governments.
on the other hand, doing what we are doing now, causes resentment because we are seen by some to be interfering too much. It doesn't help when our politicians then set things up so that they make even more for their personal fortunes at the expense of the very countries and states they claim they want to help.
I'd suggest the only reason there are no british asylum seekers in any arabs countries (if this is true which i imagine it is but i'm not certain obviously) is because said countries just don't have the money to spend on any kind of welfare for asylum seekers, as opposed to e.g. here in britain where asylum seekers get almost as much help as 100% born-in-england citizens
I also particularly like this:
Should we be worried about that? Shouldn't the destruction of the despotic, barbarous and corrupt Arab states and their replacement by democratic governments be a war aim?
Western governments are, in general, at least as corrupt. We have plenty of fine examples of conflicts of interest and "one law for us, another for the rest of them"
We have far too many "old boys"-style networks active in business and politics
I disagree that Eric is being racist - at least, not intentionally - it IS possible to be againts a culture, but not the race who is most prevalent in that culture (there ARE a very few white and other race people who follow Islam, i think)
But if, for example, Bush cares so much about toppling evil and brutal regimes, then why, for example, before 9/11, did he re-open talks with the Taleban (who were just as brutal before 9/11 as after btw) to build an oil pipeline through afghanistan? Surely, if he cared so much about the people who were being brutally oppressed there, it would have given a better message to say "No, we can put up with a very slight rise in the price of oil in return for not having dealings with a brutal regime that routinely tortures and executes it's people"?

Saudi Arabian leaders work hand-in-hand with US leaders and corporations to make a profit. These leaders, like most rich people, don't spread the wealth--they are greedy money grubbers like most of the other world leaders and corporate leaders. But many of their people remain poor. In order to direct the attention away from their greedy money grubbing, Saudi Arabian leaders allow anti-American and anti-west attitudes to foster (as they do in Madrasas, those schools that were highlighted some time ago in the news as teaching American hatred). Saudi leaders take western money with one hand, stashing it away in their pockets instead of sharing it with the people, and with the other hand they point at the West as the cause of the poverty and suffering of their people. It's evil, for sure. Here, the leaders are to blame, not the people. You cannot condemn an entire culture simply because its leaders have sold it out. Propaganda is a powerful tool; it has turned these people against us--not the culture itself. And, yes, our leaders (of the government and of the corporate world) are to blame as well. They sponsor this whole system just to make a quick buck--they are selling us out by making much of the world to hate us.

I'm pretty satisfied with my stated position here, but a few more things: it's impossible to say where the "undeveloped" nations of the world would be today without outside interference. It was inevitable that the world would get smaller over time so the interaction would have occurred at some point or other.

I was under the impression that the extreme post-colonial viewpoint had been discredited at least to the extent of communism, but apparently it remains: it was the Islamic world that was invading, colonizing and subjugating at least as much as the Christian nations discussed here, the Chinese had their period of conquest, and most African kingdoms were hardly examples of enlightenment.

The point is, the Arab/Islamic world is wholly responsible for its own decline up its own sphincter at least until the end of the 19th century.

So speaking in terms of keeping the Europeans in Europe would not have prevented colonialism by a long shot. Would the world be better off if the Europeans had stayed at home? I have no idea, but if we are speaking in terms of contributions to wolrd culture, the contributions of the Greeks, Romans and Europeans dwarfs the contributions of any other culture.

Oh, and in terms of "defending" Kilroy-Silk: I criticized his mischaracterizations and generalizations and defended only the general notion that the Arab/Islamic world is a political cesspool and that those who defend it - like Galloway and Short - are idiots.

I'm sorry if i gave the impression that i meant that (i dunno if you are referring to me or someone else or just in general) - i do realise you weren't/aren't defending him.

J, thanks, your sensitivity is always appreciated. It wasn't directed at you - just a general statement.

"Further more no group of people is
historically more guilty of savagery than the British" OH REALLY???

I suppose that the spreading of diseases
and the wholesale robbery,rape &ultimate
destruction of entire Civilizations of
highly advanced indians in the Caribbean
South America,Central America & Mexico
is nothing at all.In terms of both their
savagery and the scale on which it was done,Spain is easily on par with the
Brits,if not surpassing them in their quest for riches and territory in the new world.

"The French,Spanish & Portuguese aspired
to that distinction but failed to do equal harm to the rest of the world"

Lest we forget: The Portuguese enslaved
many more people into the new world than
the rest of europeans ever did. Brazil
being the largest recepient of slave labor in the New World.The fact that
this could not have been accomplished without the aid of Africans I'm sure you
choose to overlook.I'm guessing that the
"Whites" just corrupted them into this
though,eh? The British were just as
guilty of slavery of course but,did not
do so on the scale of many other people
and countries such as Portugal,etc etc.
Of course,by your own thoughts then the
French are not responsible for all of the problems that have beset Haiti over
the past 200+ years.It must've been the
British again somehow,right Mac???????

Anyways,there are more holes in your logic than there are in a truckload of
swiss cheese.These were just a few that I had the time to start addressing.To be
less than eloquent I offer this as a
final statement:BITCH SHUT THE FUCK UP!
YOUR REACTIONARY PRATTLE IS AT ONCE BOTH
IMMATURE AND UNDER RESEARCHED.YOU HAVE
SOME REAL OBVIOUS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES
THAT SHOULD BE ADDRESSED BEFORE YOU ARE
ALLOWED TO CONTINUE YOUR ONLINE NONSENSE
YOU CHOOSE TO PERSONALLY ATTACK (HOW"S
IT FEEL TO BE ON THE OTHER END OF IT???)
WHEN NO OTHER WAY TO DEFEND MOST OF YOUR
INANE STATEMENTS PRESENTS ITSELF AND COMMON DECENCY AND LOGIC STANDS IN YOUR WAY.BEFORE YOU CONTINUE ON WITH YOUR ATTEMPT TO ENGAGE PEOPLE AROUND THE BLOG
CRITICS SITE IN A BATTLE OF THE WITS YOU
SHOULD ARM YOURSELF FIRST!!!

for

Comment # 31: Someone's feeling a little sensitive about the British Empire today, no?

How is, "BITCH SHUT THE FUCK UP!
YOUR REACTIONARY PRATTLE IS AT ONCE BOTH
IMMATURE AND UNDER RESEARCHED.YOU HAVE
SOME REAL OBVIOUS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES
THAT SHOULD BE ADDRESSED BEFORE YOU ARE
ALLOWED TO CONTINUE YOUR ONLINE NONSENSE
YOU CHOOSE TO PERSONALLY ATTACK (HOW"S
IT FEEL TO BE ON THE OTHER END OF IT???)" an example of "COMMON DECENCY AND LOGIC?"

My response to this debating about who is more evil than who, is to say that we as human beings all have the capacity for evil. To focus intently on this or that group as the most evil perhaps allows some people to disregard the evil that they themselves and their group/culture/country are capable of doing. Scapegoating, projecting, and misleading, this type of thinking is what allows a country to persecute and oppress another in the name of culture, righteousness, or God. We all have the capacity to be as bad as the Nazis, and most governments in the world sanction equivalent evil, although at a much smaller scale (e.g., our ally Turkey killing hundreds of thousands of Kurds, our old ally Iraq killing Kurds, Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Columbia, Nicaragua, Serbia, Israel vs. Palestinians, China vs. Tibet, Russia vs. Chechnya, and the list goes on).

I must direct non-liberals to Jade's comments. He is pretty conservative, but he sees right through the scrim. Halliburton wlll profit from the occupation of Iraq. The people of Iraq will be poorer and in worse health even than the blockade caused as a result of the invasion. Just wait and see.

Eric, you can't have it both ways. You agreed with someone who said Arab and/or Muslim persons are subhumans barely on the map of existence. It is strange to turn around and acknowledge Muslim culture was a dominant influence on how the rest of the world developed. Heck, the zeroes and ones we rely on to be here on the Internet can be traced back to the very people you are deriding. You seem to have bought into the notion that considering Muslims full human beings means hating Jews. It does not. Grow up, new daddy.

Granted, James. Some of the others are/were equally barbaric. My point is that the notion savagery is the province of Second and Third World peoples so often promoted in the West is horsefeathers. On the scale of lives lost and blighted over even the last 500 years, the New Guineans can't hold a candle to the Brits.

I am going to blog that fellow's silly piece if I find time. My focus will be ignorance about the relationship between cause and effect in world history. For example, the numbskull would say English is the dominant language in the world because the English are a superior race, substituting 'culture' for race if he is sneaky. Wrong. English is the dominant language because of the reach of British colonialism and imperialism and wealth of America, Canada and Australia. In fact, I don't know that there is such a thing as a superior language. I invite other people to steal this idea for a blog entry if they want to.

Hey Mac Diva,

I think the problem here is that every person on this earth, Arab, white, or whatever, is screwed up in some way. Why can't we all get along? I think the answer is simple: because we can't. If the whites kept to themselves and the Arabs kept to themselves that wouldn't work either; not only is there division between races but there's division among races. If we split people into groups, sooner or later one group is going to run out of resources and go steal from/beg from/contact the other group. And then trouble.

A'ight.

You can't solve this problem! People aren't innately inclined to be nice to everyone! People are inclined to look out for themselves. I can only make sure that I look to the needs of others. Even so, how can I be sure my subconscious racism isn't affecting what I do? Just worry about getting along with the people around you, your fellow people.

A'ight.

If we can't agree here on this website and resort to obscene language rather than reason, what makes us think anyone can get along? If you can't get along with your neighbor, forget the Arab world! Solve that problem first. Once you're friends with your whole nation you can claim that Arabs and whites should be at peace without being a total hypocrite.

A'ight.

So, man, I respect you, but there's no solution. Consider Arabs as full people, consider them inferior, consider them superior, there's still going to be someone out there who hates you and is out to kill you.

A'ight.

I'm not saying that in the West, there aren't white people or whatever race who isn't just as screwed up as Arabs may be. There's killer psychos from every race.

A'ight.

So, when you are talking about ways to make peace with the Arabs, it probably does more if one just is friendly to an Arab just like he would be to someone of his own race, then if he throws around grandiose ideas about whole nations on the internet.

A'ight.

What I'm saying is, if there's anything that brings us to peace, (which I think there probably won't be) it is the day-to-day, small things.

A'ight.

I can't say you're wrong, but it makes me sad about human nature. With the old biological alarm clock ticking, I will have to make a decision soon. It is disheartening when I see how awful people can be.

DSN: Beware of absolutes. Take two points in time in the relationship between two countries/cultures/peoples. One would most likely be a relatively more peaceful time than the other. These things vary from day to day, year to year. To argue that on a grand scale people will always hate each other, and that it is futile to attempt to make the world a more peaceful place because we can never achieve an absolutely peaceful world, is absurd. We as individuals and we as groups can make the world more, or less, peaceful based on how we act, both on an individual basis (which you do argue for) and on a political level. We may never reach the absolute that you write about, but we don't give up on something just because an absolute ideal is unattainable (we assume it is unattainable, of course, by looking at the continuous array of violence throughout human history--but this array also shows that people can affect the relative level of peace on earth). There are varying degrees of peace and violence on a grand scale, and we can impact them by being compassionate (locally and in your global attitudes), by being politically active, and by trying to change people's minds for the better--even if it's just one mind. Then again, I don't see too many people changing their minds on Blogcritics, but I have seen some points conceded. It's that whole "the wind from a flea fart (or is it butterfly flapping its wings?) in Africa could start a hurricane on the other side of the globe" idea and that six degrees of separation idea (which I think you addressed by emphasizing compassion in personal interactions).

MD -- we have been combative, and, gasp, actually agreed about things.

You think I am an apologist for really weird things, and I think you are a tool . . . ok, ground rules set.

Let me just say this: despite our political/ideological/personal differences there is nothing better on earth than having a child. I have two, a 13 year old boy and a 16 month old little girl. You could torture me until I die, and you will never be able to erase things that go down what I call the parent memory hole. So, it is worth it.

yes, of course it is

It may not be possible to achieve peace, but we might as well try. There's nothing wrong with trying, I guess...the worst you can do is fail.

MD, you are forgetting that when *you* have a child, *you* can teach it what your moral values are. The chances are, at least something will rub off
Humans are as diverse as any species. Because we can think a little more than most (all?) other animals, we have more arguments, but all animals have factions and conflicts and that ingrained survival instinct. The only differences are
1)we have invented some nasty weapons to help us in our conflicts
2)because we can think more than most or all other animals, we should be able to at least tolerate each other better.

Some topics here at Blogcritics do fall into namecalling, but that's better than trigger-pulling. I'd rather be called names by an entire country than be nuked by them.

I hope people don't assume the Kilroy gate to be mainly due to paranoia. There were suspicions of his profesionalism in 1995 when he wrote:
"they (Muslims) are backward and evil, and if it is being racist to say so then I must be and happy and proud to be so."

Sorry to pacify the "do-gooders". This guy is very proud of his racism. (The Daily Express, 15th January 1995)

Regardless of its truth or advisability, is calling a religion "backward and evil" actually racism? Again, Kilroy made the mistake of vast overgeneralization, but theree is much about the way Islam is practiced today that IS backward and evil.

You make me think about the difference between a religion and a cult. The word "cult" has negative connotations. But weren't most of the accepted religions of today considered to be something like cults when they first developed? What happened to Jesus is a good example. Upstart religions have often been treated terribly because they defy the religion of the majority. Then when these new religions finally become established, they look down on other religions as cults. The same thing happens when we consider religions that are not part of the majority in our country.

When I hear about people complaining about Islam, it seems to me that they view it as something like a cult. It is practised by a small minority in the US, so maybe it does not gain acceptance. But in countries where Islam is the dominant religion, what do they think about Christianity?

One complaint about Islam is that it emphasizes Jihad. People have pointed to Muslim religious texts that show "barbaric" practices. Cannot one find the same faults with the Bible (keeping in mind that Christianity and Islam overlap and share some texts)?

Fortunately, most people don't adhere to everything that is in the Bible. I think that the same can be said for Islam. Yes there is a Taliban. But there were also the Puritans and the Branch Davidians. Perhaps it is fundamentalism and apocalyptic thinking that some should be focusing on--rather than on an entire, widespread religion that has many variants. See Culture, Religion, Apocalypse, and Middle East Foreign Policy.

Dirtgrain, what you say is basically true but somewhat beside the point. It doesn't have anything to do with the acceptance of Islam as a minority religion in the US: please recall that prior to 9/11 Americans held a basically benign view of Islam - recall Bush's "religion of peace" statement in the aftermath.

The question is what percentage of adherents subscribe to unreasonable, fundamentalist, fanatical, dangerous points of view and ascribe it to their religion? The percentage is much higher for Islam than it is for Christianity, and a general tolerance for fundamentalism as "the answer" is much higher in Islam than in Christianity or Judaism, or any other mainstream religion with which I am familiar.

THAT is the problem and the central issue: why is Islam like this and what can be done about it, AND is there something inherent to Islam that encourages this kind of thinking?

Yes, "fundamentalism and apolalyptic thinking" are exactly the problems, but a much greater problem with Islam than any other religion.

I adore my kids, but I know how the world situation as is causes me much anguish and torment. I sometimes believe I should not have given birth, if only to spare them the horror of this world -- and I believe that because I love my kids so much. I believe I did them a massive disservice by brining them into this hellish place.

Yes, "fundamentalism and apolalyptic thinking" are exactly the problems, but a much greater problem with Islam than any other religion.

I wonder how much of the correlation with Islam has to do with the abject poverty in which so many Muslims live and have lived for so long. Part of the problem might be that jidhadists think they have no place to go but up, so they find an enemy that has been, in their minds, keeping them down and then fight the bigger bad guy.

Of course, Atta and some of the other 9/11 perpetrators were not from poor backgrounds. Hm.

Still, I wonder about the poverty/powerlessness/anger connections. That and the fact that jihad *is* part of the religion, whether or not it's being interpreted correctly these days. So it's justified, religiously speaking, in Islam, whereas in Christianity, Jesus was all about the love and turning of the cheek.

I am sorry to hear you that down, Nat. There is much ugliness in the world but much beauty too, and you seem to appreciate the beauty more than most. It really comes down to temperament: is the world half-full or half-empty? I feel compelled to see it as half-full.

bhw, I think it's all tied together: the culture, the religion, the politics, the economy. I don't know the order, but improving the political situation and encouraging economic development rather than grim atavisim is critical. Islam is clearly much more liberal here than it is in, say, Egypt, but that doesn't explain the radical fundamentalists who ARE here and in Europe. it's a very thorny problem, but one we can no longer ignore.

Wealthy Saudis and the Kuwaitis, though allegedly our allies, do most of the funding of Muslim terrorists. So, for the rich, at least, the motivation is murkier than escaping poverty-ridden lives.

I also believe some fights that have little or nothing to do with jihad are getting subsumed under that label. I will be posting a news item about the Thai Muslim insurgency, which I'm sure some people will misinterpret as being related to international terrorism, today at Mac-a-ro-nies. It isn't, so I will have to explain it in a later entry.

I also believe some fights that have little or nothing to do with jihad are getting subsumed under that label.

Absolutely. In my earlier comment, I should have put the word "justified" inside quotation marks.

People just aren't going to be nice. Whether I see the world as half full or half empty or whatever, that doesn't change the reality that this world is completely empty. Nothing that's in it will ever make me happy. But then I'll die anyway, right? And after that...? Hmm?

Here is the entry I promised. Once the news item about the Muslim insurgency in Thailand was up, it struck me I had opened the door for people to misinterpret it. So, some clarification was needed. The current atmosphere really is starting to chill speech.

there is a difference between Islam itself, and the way people choose to put it into practice, as with any religion. Kilroy's major mistake was getting caught up in his own vitriol and forgetting to make clear his meaning (assuming he really didn't mean to be religionist and/or racist). Fair enough, journalists and celebrities can make mistakes, but other journalists have been castigated for making such a mistake when the subejct matter is so sensitive. When you are in the public eye, you should be aware that you have to be more careful than the "average" member of the public

Arabs are uncivilised beats and so are all other muslims if they all died tommorow the world would be a better place.

The Barking Basher has barked.

Hardcore techno - now there's some uncivilised beats.