[BCrago66]

If President Bush said that, he's wrong. It is about Islam, a primitive, barbaric religion. And that guy Mo' was a freak, too.

[Moonman62]

If President Bush said that, he's wrong. It is about Islam, a primitive, barbaric religion. And that guy Mo' was a freak, too.

Maybe, but I think W is right to frame it as a contest of values.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

While it could be about Islam, it is not about Christianity versus Islam.

[backtothestreets]

If President Bush said "if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we’ll lose", he is probably not up to the challenge, or does not know fully our history. Our nation and the free world has walked this path before.

Our war with Japan was a religious war. The Shinto religion, at the time the official state religion of Japan, was used to make war on other nations and enslave people.

The belligerence, the beheadings, the suicidal pilots in aircraft, acts of terrorism, suicide bombers, sneak attacks, torture, intolerance, destruction of churches, religious persecutions, and so much more was brought to us initially from the Shinto religion. It was the religion used by the Japanese to justify their actions. And make no mistake, it was a religious war. This is why it took the emperor, the deity of the Shinto religion, and not the military nor the government to surrender the country. The military fought the war, but the Shinto religion manifested the war.

President Bush may be unaware it was a religious war. That is most unfortunate as so much of what we are witnessing now is history revisited, almost as though scripted from prewar Japan. So many lives could be saved if the President and others learn, and learn quickly. The first step should be to forbid Muslims from entering our nation under any circumstance. Muslims here now that are were not born here should be repatriated to their homeland. Time is short. Diplomacy will not settle our situation any more than it solved the crisis with Shinto Japan leading up to WWII.

[reelfoot]

"If President Bush said that, he's wrong. It is about Islam, a primitive, barbaric religion. And that guy Mo' was a freak, too."

BUMP.

[longtermmemmory]

Islam is about KEEPING people ignorant and barbaric. The "enlightenment" of islam was when a bunch of arab merchant found they could sucker venitians into buy some ancient scrolls.

[MNJohnnie]

Perhaps the "Kill all the Muslims" crowd might want to try and explain why the bulk of the forces fighting on OUR side in the war now are Muslims?

Did any of usual hysteric Muslim haters with their "No Muslims are helping us" screaming even stop to think the Northern Alliance and the Kurds are Muslims? But of course not. It is not about facts, it about self validation of their emotional based hysteria for the Know Nothings.

The President is right and the Know Nothings DEAD wrong. Any successful Counter Insurgency effort needs local support for intelligence gathering, combat forces and longer term stability. WE cannot stay there forever. Some day the locals are going to be running their own country. This is about making sure those locals running their country are more in line with our values then our foes values. Turn this into a Us Vrs Them and we lose all our local allies.

When 50% of us question why we are fighting at all, if we lose our local allies via this sort of heavy handed ignorance and bigotry then we will lose the war.

The people of the US have neither the will, nor the need, to wage a war of conquest in the Middle East. We win this war by backing various groups of Muslims to slaughter the other group of Muslims.

The Know Nothings with their wacko fantasies that this some how can be turned into a "Holy War" against all Islam need to come to grips with the political, and practical, limitation we operate under.