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To: traditionalist
Thank you traditionalist. I simply wanted to understand better. I did not, by the way, suggest any sort of government dominated by either religion. In this case, however, I think they must try to incorporate the basic principles of justice from both sides. We are not dealing with the American mindset.

Where is the threat? The problem is with those who believe it's their God given duty to make you Muslim or die. In that case there is no common ground and no negotiating, only war. If it lies with any side, that has been the Ottoman (and now the neo-Ottoman) M.O., at least, for the last 600 years and I doubt they are going to rest any time soon. (In the Balkans during the 15th Century, the Ottoman Sultan took the youngest child of non-muslim families and raised them as Muslims) I would reexamine where that threat lies, all you have to do is look at Chechnya, Kosovo, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Philippines, Congo... Look at the History!

45 posted on 07/15/2002 5:04:19 PM PDT by SQUID
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To: SQUID
Where is the threat?

Peace in central Asia is essential to American security interests. An expansionsit India run by Hindu Nationalists would threaten that peace.

The problem is with those who believe it's their God given duty to make you Muslim or die. In that case there is no common ground and no negotiating, only war. If it lies with any side, that has been the Ottoman (and now the neo-Ottoman) M.O., at least, for the last 600 years and I doubt they are going to rest any time soon.

The West had no major conflicts with the Ottomans from the 18th century until WW1, and that would not have happened had the British accepted an alliance that the Ottomans had proposed. Rebuffed by the British, they allied themselves with the Germans, and the rest is history. The Ottomans never attacked the British, but rather the British used their alliance (signed before the war) with the Germans as a pretext for invading the Middle East.

In earlier times the Ottomans assisted the British in defeating Bonaparte. There exist many examples of Islamic countries that are at peace with the West: Jordan, Egypt, Malaysia, and Turkey to name a few.

(In the Balkans during the 15th Century, the Ottoman Sultan took the youngest child of non-muslim families and raised them as Muslims)

I'm not endorsing this practice, but it was not as if anyone was killed, and it was not from every family. Those children later made up an elite force in the Sultan's army and were highly decorated members of his court, if I remember correctly. Many empires, Islamic and non-Islamic, had similar practices.

Your contention that the Ottomans believed it was their "God given duty to make you Muslim or die," as you put it, is simply untrue.

I would reexamine where that threat lies, all you have to do is look at Chechnya, Kosovo, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Philippines, Congo... Look at the History!

Contrary to what some people think, history does not show the West in constant conflict with the Islamic world.

Saddam Hussein is not an Islamist, but a secularist and a socialist. Radical Islamists want to overthrow regimes like his. Chechnya wants independence from Russia, so that conflict is driven by nationalism, not religion, though as in Afganistan's war against the Soviets and most other wars of independence, religion is employed in the service of nationalism.

Of course, there are certain forms of Islam that are a threat, one much greater than Hindu nationalism, and that form of Islam is dominant in the places you mention. But just because one threat is greater than another does not mean that the lesser one is to be ignored.

46 posted on 07/16/2002 6:36:15 AM PDT by traditionalist
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