Christians, and Americans, and Jews are all innocent of the WTC bombing. And so am I. So why does the vituperation get directed at US, instead of at the guilty party, the abomination of desolation itself?The "guilty party" is hardly a religious shrine. The "vituperation," to which you refer, was not directed against Christians, Americans or Jews, nor did it have anything to do with the WTC bombing. It had to do with a self-defeating focus on the wrong target, in another war, which has nothing to do with what most of us are trying to deal with and wage successfully in 2001.
You may personally hate Moslems. Most of us only hate terrorists--who in this instance happen to be Moslems, but they are not all Moslems, nor is the religion, per se, the enemy. Your argument would be like blaming all Catholics for the antics of the IRA--most of whom are probably atheists, who happened to be born into Catholic families. They have some support in the Catholic community in Ireland, for reasons very similar to why those seen as fighting the Israelis have support among many religious Moslems. But only a real fanatic would seek to destroy Catholic shrines, because some Catholics sympathize with the IRA (most, of course, want no part of them--none whatsoever).
I do not know if any shrines have been destroyed on either side in Northern Ireland. I do know that both sides have their talking points. Hopefully, they will find their way to a peaceful accommodation. Hopefully, so will the peoples of the Near East. But nothing could be more counter-productive than for either side to start attacking the sacred shrines of the other.
Let me put all this another way: Let us say that out of the World's 1,000,000,000 Muslems, 800,000,000 are in families that care enough to wish that America was not allied to the Israelis--that is a wild guess, but bear with me. Probably not over 800,000 of those people are actively prepared to do something mean about it. Perhaps another 80,000,000 are in families that will actually go out and cheer when some from those 800,000 potential terrorists do something nasty. But they do not have the fervor to go out and join them. (The mobs acting up in the streets to celebrate our misery are analogous to a group of drunks in a Boston Bar, cheering on some act of terror by the IRA.)
Along come some overly zealous Americans, and start a movement to dismantle the third most sacred site in Islam. Now you have quite another situation. The real recruitment against us will be on in earnest. Next there will not be 800,000 potential terrorists, but 20 or 30 million, with a far more valid point to make; while the militant support group will not be 80,000,000 but 400 to 500 million.
Why invite that by a mean spirited and spiteful act?
Let us hunt down those who are trying to kill us, and then return to the wise Washington/Jefferson foreign policy where we demand respect, but accord like respect back to all peoples.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
