Pong
Yeah. Let’s support all 12 moderate muslims in the world before they go extinct or are brought back into line.
When it comes down to the nitty gritty, guess who those mods are going to support!
You cannot trust any Muzzie!
That comment above tends to bring out the screaming know-it-alls, but they'll just have to deal with it. Here...I'll even say the phrase that sends them into orbit: Not all Muslims are terrorists. ;-)
Not if they are following the satanic verses of the koran!!!
I knew it... we should’a supported the moderate Nazi’s!
No
Islam, whatever else it is, seems to be a quasi-tribal identity. Its adherents, therefore, seem to have a real hard time ever truly identifying with a non-Muslim group of people in any significant conflict with a Muslim group of people.
Even the most "moderate" Muslims in the West will still feel a tinge of sympathy for their "Palestinian brothers" (regardless of whether the person is Palestinian, or even Arab). Contrast this with how the West treated the Serbs - only on the Buchananite fringe did you hear anyone speak of them as our "Christian brothers" and advocate not bombing them on those grounds. To the mainstream of Western thought, such a view doesn't even compute.
Why is this? Because - unlike Christianity - Islam is not just a religion, and not just an ideology, but also a global, quasi-tribe.
And there may be moderates in a religion (people who don't follow all the religion's tenets, take them too literally, etc.) and moderates in an ideology (people who don't adhere to the ideology's beliefs to an extreme), but there is really no such thing as "moderate" tribalism; you either identify with the tribe against the other, or you don't.
So the real question is, the Muslims who we are supposed to consider moderates - are they willing to abandon their tribalism?
In Turkey recently there have been huge protests in favor of secular government. I've seen estimates as high as 1.5 million protesting the current Islamic ruling party. I can't imagine anything that would get 1.5 million Americans to take to the streets.
I'm from Missouri. Show me.
Great just spit my coffee all over the computer screen from laughing..now to cleaning up. Moderate muslin...hahahahah
Road Map for Moderate Network Building in the Muslim World (long read)
RAND Corp. ^ | Angel Rabasa, Cheryl Benard, Lowell H. Schwartz, Peter Sickle
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1818382/posts
Posted on 04/16/2007 6:09:23 PM CDT by Valin
Identifying Key Partners and Audiences
A critical part of U.S. network-building efforts, as well as in its broader public diplomacy and strategic communications policy, is identifying key partners and audiences. Difficulties in distinguishing potential allies from adversaries present a major problem to Western governments and organizations attempting to organize support for moderate Muslims. Work done by the RAND Corporation—in Cheryl Benard’s Civil Democratic Islam and Angel Rabasa et al., The Muslim World After 9/11—has begun to lay the framework for identifying ideological tendencies in the Muslim world,1 which is necessary in order to identify the sectors with which the United States and its allies can be most e.ective in promoting democracy and stability to counter the in.uence of extremist and violent groups.
Around the world Muslims differ substantially not only in their religious views, but also in their political and social orientation, including their conceptions of government; their views on the primacy of shari’a (Islamic law) versus other sources of law; their views on human rights, especially the rights of women and religious minorities; and whether they support, justify, or tolerate violence perpetrated in advancement of a political or religious agenda. We refer to these as “marker issues,” and the position of groups or individuals on them allows for a more precise classifcation of these groups in terms of their a.nity for democracy and pluralism.
(snip)
Only one question:
Should we reserve a phone booth or an elevator for the meeting?
Another post that’s sure to bring out Free Republic’s very own Keyboard Commandos.
Hey folks, think we’re at war with Islam? Looking to kill yourself a whole lot of Muslims? There are plenty over in Iraq. What are you waiting for?
I can’t disagree more. I’m beginning to think that the only good muslim is a dead muslim. Sorry folks, but I don’t trust them, any of them!
To believe in non-jihadist islam is wishful thinking, or even magical thinking. On par of believe in faries.
Would be laughable, if the stakes weren’t so high.