"They are being told to stay home, don't leave your house ... they are not going on with "business as usual"."
What?! I'm a Londoner and I can assure you that - until today's attacks - it HAS been business as usual.
More importantly, though, there's something that's been nagging away at me since I came here a couple of weeks ago in the aftermath of the first attacks. I found this site a good way to keep up with what's being reported because people are posting material from a wide range of different sources. The same has been true today.
But I just can't get past some of the more extreme viewpoints being espoused here - many of which seem remarkably widespread. Again, today, people have reacted to the attacks by suggesting that the problem here is Islam, rather than terrorism, or voicing disapproval when Blair's response apparently wasn't bloodthirsty enough.
I'd like to ask these people a simple question. If the problem really IS Islam, don't you think the manifestation of that problem would be somewhat more serious?
There are somewhere above 1 billion Muslims in the world today. But if you take the FIRST attacks on the WTC as the start of Islamic terrorist attacks on the West, and trace that thread through the attack on the Cole, 9/11, Bali, Madrid and London, you'll note that in a 12-year campaign of terror, less than 3,000 people have been killed. Less than 3,000 - by an enemy numbering 1 billion. In 12 years.
In Leeds, around a sixth of the population is Muslim. Why aren't the streets of Leeds streaming with blood?
If all Muslims are burning with implacable hatred of the West, why do I count two of them among my oldest friends? If Islam is the problem, why did terrorist attacks on the West begin in 1993?
Seriously. Speaking as a Londoner, I'm as keen as anyone to ensure that the people responsible for this are put behind bars - and I also want to see people responsible for inciting terrorism deported. But it's pretty clear to me that what we're dealing with here is a strain of Islam - not Islam itself, not all Muslims, but a dangerous band of extremists. Pretending otherwise is not going to help to solve the problem.
Cheers!
Have a nice day, Neville, and stay safe.
But it's pretty clear to me that what we're dealing with here is a strain of Islam - not Islam itself, not all Muslims, but a dangerous band of extremists.
Yes, but if the Muslim clerics really believe that what the terrorists are doing is contrary to Islam, let's see them start issuing fatwas against any Muslim who expresses such hateful sentiments. Actions speak louder than words.
Right!
You'll get villified for it, but brilliant post.
Perhaps we would take a cuddlier view of Islam if the so-called "moderate" Muslim community actually started policing the mosques where these vile monsters are being spawned. Until the Muslim community begins turning in their radical compadres and cleaning up their act, I have no patience for "the religion of peace".
More serious what do you call 56 dead and 1000 injured????
I'd like to ask these people a simple question. If the problem really IS Islam, don't you think the manifestation of that problem would be somewhat more serious?
One of the unfortunate downside to a free and open place of exchange like Free Republic(especially where one can post anonymously) is that some of the nuttier, rabid, fringe, and knee-jerk posters can spam lots of irrational thought. The most vocal often are the least representative.
artillerylane, welcome to FR. There are some complete loons on here. There is no arguing with them.
You are assuredly right about all you say.
The major question I have for all the Muslims - indeed the major DEMAND I make - is that they repudiate the radicals, and are far more active in purging the terrorists from their midst. If they don't, and soon, there will be no choice but to assume all Muslims are complicit.
Give it time. If President Bush hadn't gone after the terrorists and their money, this might have happened earlier in Britain.
Just look at the goofball Muslims in Britain listening to that radical one-hand imam. Remember that it didn't take that many militants to take over Afghanistan.
You need to wake up.
These Islamic cults have been roaming the globe for 25 years, targeting innocents with impunity.
The UN, EU, the European and the entire western press, have been painting them as victims of an Israeli "occupation" for 25 years. The civilized world has rationalized these murders of children in pizza parlors as understandable as long as Israel fails to lay down for the Pals living who are living in slums that Arafat and other Arab gov keep them in, for the sympathy factor.
It is a proxy war against the US and Israel power, always has been, and quite deserved and enjoyed as Europe sees it, until now, since they are targets as a result of fighting back.
I would assume that Muslims in the UK are much like those here. Much of the reason they live there is to get away from the nutbars. Weren't a couple of heavily Muslim areas hit by the first attacks?
Yes, there are Islamist nuts who are a threat. But the Muslims of the west are our allies against them. Of course, if we let the islamophobist bigots carry the rhetorical day, they are likely to wonder if there is really that much of a difference.
-Eric
Many of us have read and researched Islam and see the differences between it and other large religions in its historical development.
First, it must be understood that when we hear the word "fundamentalist" we think of that in the sense of how that term is used in differintiating Christians. It implies a small percentage.
In Islam, the moderates are the small minority in the Arab world. Wahhabi'ists are the drivers of the Saudi bus, for instance, and actually put the Faud family in place. The great muslim outreach has been in the schools set up by such hard line portions of the main-stream and that is what is being exported to the west.
Secondly, Islam has always been practiced to be a "state religion" and even to serve in lieu of secular government and law. It has always been that way in the Arab world and we see even muslims in Canada (as I recall from a recent story) asking for Shaira law to be applied to them within their own clerical court system and exemptions from secular law. The state then serves to harbor and support and it becomes war "by other means."
We see this in the religious warriors Syria sends out in formal groups but claims no responsibility for and distances themselves from to stay unaccountable.
Read up and you will find that treating the history as though they are a denomination of the Judiac/Chistian world view, like Methodists or Pentacostals is a failure to see the true historical differences.
It is up to western muslims to define their religous community by action in a way that seperates themselves from this history. It is not up to the victims to parse the threat.
Sensible prejudice, as your man Burke taught us, is a natural and a good thing even while true bigotry is not. In our media culture the former is defined as the later to the extent that common sense is abandoned if fear of misidentification.
Well said, however, the silence and inaction of the moderates is unforgivable. The seem to be just staying out of the way until the terrorists impose a worldwide califate. IMHO, all muslims should be forced to pick a side.
I posted earlier that I feel it is a deeper, darker self-centered desire. (see post #1379) I have trouble explaining it, but there seems to be some singular focus on one's own desires that unites these people and it is fed and bred in their Islamic/Muslim roots. Why?
Why aren't those who do not hold to these actions more able to rid themselves of the types who have hijacked their religion? Why, if as you say there are thousands of peaceful Muslims (and I believe that to be true) they cannot have more influence and put an end to this from within?
I think that is what people are so frustrated about. The world is suffering, innocent civilians are dying, many soldiers are paying the ultimate price to bring freedom to lands far from home, and all over people are frightened. Why don't the Muslims engage in a united effort to stop this rampant terroristic wave? We all want to have a target to blame, and because the terrorists so blatantly ally themselves to Islam, it is natural we would focus our concern on the whole of the religion/peoples.
The peace-loving Muslim people need to do more to free the world of this terror. They are allowing this feeling of hate -- that now comes from both within their faith toward Christians/Jews/et al, and from those outside who point fingers -- to grow because they have not stood strongly enough against it. Not just in word, but in action! It is only through their own efforts to stop this that they will ever be free of suspicion or, worse, by many people who fear the terror that is being perpetrated on us in the name of Islam/Allah.
So, please, tell your friends, please, we are willing not to judge all Muslims as "evil" but we do wish they would police their own and get rid of the rotten apples that are spoiling the barrel.
Actually you can go back at least as far as 1973 when U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Cleo A. Noel and other diplomats were assassinated at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum by members of the Black September organization.
Or, also in 1973, when five terrorists pulled weapons from their luggage in the terminal lounge at the Rome airport, killing two persons. They then attacked a Pan American 707 bound for Beirut and Tehran, destroying it with incendiary grenades and killing 29 persons, including 4 senior Moroccan officials and 14 American employees of the Arabian-American Oil Company (ARAMCO). They then herded 5 Italian hostages into a Lufthansa airliner and killed an Italian customs agent as he tried to escape, after which they forced the pilot to fly to Beirut. After Lebanese authorities refused to let the plane land, it landed in Athens, where the terrorists demanded the release of 2 Arab terrorists. In order to make Greek authorities comply with their demands, the terrorists killed a hostage and threw his body onto the tarmac. The plane then flew to Damascus, where it stopped for two hours to obtain fuel and food. It then flew to Kuwait, where the terrorists released their hostages in return for passage to an unknown destination.
Or in 1979 when four Afghans kidnapped U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Kabul and demanded the release of various "religious figures." Dubs was killed, along with four alleged terrorists, when Afghan police stormed the hotel room where he was being held.
Terrorist attacks on the West began soon after Mohammed proclaimed the birth of Islam.
It goes farther back than 1993.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nidal
October 7 – October 10, 1985: Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking by Palestinian Liberation Front(led by Abu Nidal), during which passenger Leon Klinghoffer, retired appliance manufacturer of New York, is shot while he was sitting in his wheelchair, and then thrown overboard (while still alive). His wife watched in horror.
Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up as it flew over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988.
October 6, 1981: Assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by Islamic Jihad. (I guess Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin really miffed those Moslems with all that talk of peace).
Since 1968, the U.S. State Department has tallied deaths due to terrorism. In 1985, it counted 816 deaths, the highest annual toll until then. The deaths decreased since the late 1980's, then rose to 3,295 in 2001, mainly as a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks. In 2003, more than 1,000 people died as a result of terrorist acts. Many of these deaths resulted from suicide bombings in Chechnya, Iraq, India and Israel. It does not tally victims of state terrorism.
If you count France as the West they suffered Terror attacks by Algerians in the 1950's.
If you go further back you'll find the British Empire suffered from jihad in Moslem territories.
It seems those Moslems have been murdering people in the name of their God constantly since The Prophet had his first dream-fit.