After viewing, what are your opinions ???

[JustJohn or JJ]

[pieter]

Dear John,

Therefor we have to stand with the Christians in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt (the Copts), Turkey and other Muslim countries. Our leaders do not give a d**n about these christians. They only are interested in the contacts with the Muslim leaders. It keeps surprising me that time after time Western governments do not back Middle eastern, Maronite, Melkite Greek Catholic, Coptic, Assyrian, Armenian and Palestinian christians. In fact the only few people I heard about these christians were Israeli's and some Evangelical christians in the USA and Europe, who pray for these people. These christians are an endangered spieces. They are harassed, opressed by Muslim authorities, lynched, hijacked, victims of suicide bombings and shootouts, executed, beaten, tortured, opressed, ethnic cleansed (driven out their native, christian villages, towns and neighborhoods), ridiculed, mocked and simply not accepted by the Sunni Muslim majorities in the countries they live in.



This video gives the reason for the existance of parties and movements like Geert Wilders PVV, Marine le Pen's Front National, Gerolf Annemans Vlaams Belang, Kristian Thulesen Dahl's Dansk Folkeparti, Heinz-Christian Strache's Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), Holger Apfel's NPD, Jimmie Åkesson's Sverigedemokraterna and Tommy Robinson's English Defence League (EDL) do not exist for nothing or didn't came out of nothing. The main reason for their existence is the presence of Muslim migration, the failed integration and assimilation of these people, and their growing influence and presence, which annoys and scares some European voters. Vice versa Muslims in Europe can be intolerant, aggressive, militant and violent in their behavior to Non-Muslims. The tensions grow, because of the gap between these muslims and the secular-humanist societies they live in. These societies do not want to change in favor of a dogmatic, doctrinary and theocratic minority. The Clash of Civilizations, a theory that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world, stated by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington is a reality in Europe.







The extremist and intolerant views of both Islamists and anti-Muslim Islamophobe Rightwing populists is growing in Europe. In the Polls today Geert Wilders PVV is the most popular party in the Netherlands. Second is the leftwing populist Socialist party, which in the past also had anti-immigrants points of view.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

An American(Texan)Muslim

[karl]

J.J.

Thank you for introduction of a topic much ladined with high possiblities of confliction in opinions. The adage of: religion and politects, the brew of controversy..But then, for every question of why, there layst the answer,,,for why not?

I do agree with the response of pieters, for yes, there is a growing issue in our neck of the woods of Germany in as so, in The Netherland of Pieters. This in the conflict of cultures between Christian and Islam. The Muslims do recogonize Christians and Jews as People of The Book. But, also as we have strayed from The Book. With this, they {Islamics} are the only true people of the Book {Koran}. It is some thing to be kept in mind whilst dealing with Islamics.

In the matter of politects, if my self were to be allowed to enter into for or against, it would be again in Pieters area of the: PVV in most agreement with Geert Wilders. In my minds eye, this man has it correct with our Islamic problem. But, not entirely, for although, and once again if allowed to do so, my opinion of Mr. Wilders is: He is correct in his assessments, but goes to far and needs be a bit more gentle in his views. In this manner, to not to turn away those in aggreement by fears of extremest thinking.

In practical terms, upon viewing of the vidio, is correct in presentation, but not so in daily living. For yes, Moslums to adhere to the rules of the Koran in their lands, but once away from their lands, they are little different then others in pleasure seeking. Not all of course, but many.

To be correct in their own land as for instance: It is ok to frequent an evening club in Aleppo {before the currant situation} with others, but to drink tea in the stead of an alcoholic drink. But, for those trips to Egypt, they drink what ever they wish and with this, with what ever prostitute catches their eye. In Syria and Kowait, Egypt is considered a prostitute country for play and pleasure.

So, as with other societies, it is not exact or constant with their own rules of the Koran. What is constant, is those rules they wish to abide by or ignore.

The endangerment of this is a bit cruil. For it is a strong reminder of our time before the war and during the war years, of the public disclosed information for devalueing a race of people, and that was the Jews and Gypsies. We must and should keep this in mind when dealing with the people of the book of Islam. But in the same, not allow them to make nonsence of our laws and standards. For their presence in our lands, is by our concent, not theirs. They left their land for a reason, we only allow them their opportunity to a new life in our respective land with the premise of becoming our new citizens.

Karl

[pieter]

Folks,

I posted some critical video's of Islam and Islamist and muslim migrants without criticizing them. I agree with Karl's, reply and therfor will not support Geert Wilders, because he is to extreme and to anti-European for me. I am in favor of cooperation and finding solutions for problems. In the case of the Islamization problem (both the radical islam and the general problem of the lack of integration of Muslim migrants into the European cultures, societies and functional economies) I am somewhere inbetween the mainstream democratic political parties (the political establishment of the old accepted democratic parties of the centre-left and centre-right; Labour/Social-democrats; liberal-democrats/social-liberals; christian-democrats; and the conservative-liberals/conservatives) and the rightwing and leftwing Populist on the far right and the (far) left.

The pressure of integration and negative news about criminal Muslim migrant youth in our towns and cities, and the complaining of the native European population, politicians and authorities about the lack of integration has put pressure on the Muslim migrants the last decade. There is positive news and there are positive developments in the Muslim migrant communities. Some of them have become succesful in the use and knowledge of the Dutch and other Western languages like German, English and French, and therefor a able to participate in the labour process. For instance Moroccan, Turkish, Kurd, Iranian and Afghan girls are quite succesful in higschool, because due to their background they are eager to be succesful, independent, emancipated, and the liberal, secular, moderate, Western Muslim women they want to be. Or not to be. Some of them choose not to be Muslim, but live a secular life or married Dutch, German, Belgian, French or other partners.

You can't talk about "the Muslims", because there are many kinds of Sunni-, Shia and other kinds of Muslims. What worried me is that I have seen radical kind of Muslims in Arnhem, both in the North and in the South (at the place where I work). Guys who looked like the Al-Qaida or Taliban kind of Islamists I saw in video's and photography about Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libiya, Lebanon, Egypt and Algeria. I talked with these chaps, and they were indoctrinated, ultra-orthodox, Sunni-Muslim fanatics, who believed in the pure Islam from Saoudi-Arabia. They talked about Syria and were full of the situation over there. And suddenly they were gone. A colleage of mine told me that they had gone to Syria. And that means, that they are fighting there. These were the long black bearded types, with long clothes like they were in the countries I mentioned. They looked excatly like the Al-Nusra Front fighters I saw in the video's of Syria. Question is, do they come back? And how will they be when they return?

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

John, I think that this video was carefully made propaganda against Islam. Every religious book is full of contradictions. See the Torah and how God was supporting Jews against other nations, tribes, even if it was unjust, just because they were his people? Judaism and Christianity were not always religions of peace..... you remember Catholic missionaries in America, it was not always peaceful.....

[pieter]

Sept 21, 2013 4:01:20 GMT -7 Jaga said:

John, I think that this video was carefully made propaganda against Islam. Every religious book is full of contradictions. See the Torah and how God was supporting Jews against other nations, tribes, even if it was unjust, just because they were his people? Judaism and Christianity were not always religions of peace..... you remember Catholic missionaries in America, it was not always peaceful.....

Jaga,

Today most branches of Christianity and Judaism are peaceful, while branches of the Sunni- and Shia Islam are not. All over the Muslim world there are tensions and conflicts between Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims. Look outside the Arab world and the Middle-east and Northern-Africa for instance. The Nagorno-Karabakh War, the ongoing Islamic insurgency in the Philippines. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) is an Islamist group formed in the 1960s following the Jabidah massacre to achieve greater Bangsamoro autonomy in the southern Philippines. The MNLF took part in terrorist attacks and assassinations to achieve their goals. The government in Manila sent troops into the southern Philippines to control the insurgency.

The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, an armed conflict between India and Pakistan that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LOC). The term Line of Control (LOC) known as Asia's Berlin wall, refers to the military control line between the Indian and Pakistani-controlled parts of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir—a line which, to this day, does not constitute a legally recognized international boundary but is the de facto border. The Indian Army, later on supported by the Indian Air Force, recaptured a majority of the positions on the Indian side of the LOC. The cause of the war was the infiltration of Pakistani soldiers and militant Kashmiri Islamist insurgents into positions on the Indian side of the LOC. With international diplomatic opposition, the Pakistani forces withdrew from the remaining Indian positions along the LOC.

Thousands of people have died during fighting between insurgents and the government as well as thousands of civilians who have died as a result of being targeted by the various armed groups. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan has been accused by India of supporting and training mujahideen to fight in Jammu and Kashmir. According to official figures released in Jammu and Kashmir assembly, there were 3,400 disappearance cases and the conflict has left more than 47,000 people dead as of July 2009.

Other conflicts outside the Middle-east are the very bloody and brutal 'civil war in Somalia', 'the Bosnian War' (in which the biased Western press and political powers only blamed the Serbs for atrocities and forgot to mention the atrocities committed by the Croat and Bosnian-Muslim armies and militia. The Bosnian Muslim were supported by Islamists from the Arab world, North-Africa and Chechenia. Croat forces, Arab volunteers came across Croatia into Bosnia to join the Bosnian Army. They were organized into detachment called El-Mudžahid. The number of the El-Mudžahid volunteers is still disputed, from around 300 to 1,500. Foreign fighters, styling themselves mujahiddin, turned up in Bosnia around 1993 with Croatian identity documents and passports. They quickly attracted heavy criticism amplified by Serbian and Croatian propaganda, who considered their presence to be evidence of violent Islamic fundamentalism at the heart of Europe. Most of the Bosnian Army's supply of weapons was air-lifted from the Muslim world, specifically Iran – an issue which became the subject of some controversy and a US congressional investigation in 1996.

The Kosovo War was very brutal too, and the Second Sudanese Civil War from 1983 to 2005, was one of the most bloodiest conflicts in the 20th century and early 21th century. Racism and discrimination of the Black Southern animists, christians and Muslims by Arab Muslim Northerners played an important role in it. Slavery and slave trade existed in Sudan back then. The ongoing war in Darfur is in the same country and started in February 2003. Darfur lies in West-Sudan. Racism and genocide of the black people of Darfur by invading Arab tribes and their militia is an important part of the Darfur conflict. You often see that Arab Muslims treat non-Arab muslims inside Arabia and outside Arabia with contempt.

Next to this you have the ongoing Second Chechen War (the First Chechen war was in the Ninetees under the presidency of Boris Jeltsin), the War in North-West Pakistan, the civil war in Thailand between the Thai army and Southern insurgents with a muslim background. And look at the troubles in Indonesia, China, Russia, Europe and the USA with Muslim extremists. Most victims of these Muslim extremists in the world by the way are Muslims. These fanatics often consider other Muslims who do not belong to their Salafist, Wahhabist, or Fundamentalist Sunni-Muslim version of Islam as heretics, secularists, fake Muslims or even non-muslims. They attack members of the Sufi Islam and Muslims who belong to the Ahmadiyya, an Islamic reformist movement. And ofcourse Shia Muslims are opressed, hunted down, assasinated and killed by suicide bombings on their processions, pilgrimages and mosques. Their attackers are fanatic extremist Sunni-Muslims. Often Salafists or Wahabbist Islamist terrorists (which are puritinical Sunni Muslims).

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS FROM THE 1960S

With the defeat in June 1967 of the Arab states by Israel in the Six-Day (June) War, socialist and Pan-Arab ideologies declined in the Islamic world while political Islam emerged as a public force. Egypt, which had been under the influence of the Soviet Union since the mid-1950s, withdrew from military and other treaties with the Soviets in the 1970s under Pres. Anwar el-Sādāt. A new alliance between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, fostered by economic assistance to Egypt from Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing Persian Gulf states, altered the geopolitical map of Islam and led to new religious dynamics. In 1962 the Saudi regime established the Muslim World League in Mecca with the participation of Muslim scholars and intellectuals from all over the world. The league, whose mission was to unify Muslims and promote the spread of Islam, opened offices in the Islamic world in the 1960s and in the West in subsequent decades. With financial assistance as well as religious guidance from the league, new Islamic organizations were created by revivalist movements in the Islamic world and by immigrant Muslim communities in Europe and America.

During this period Islamist movements, which insisted that society and government should conform to Islamic values, began to openly criticize state control of Islam in their countries and condemned their governments’ minimalist interpretations of Islamic norms. These movements were diverse from the start and did not reach public prominence until 1979, when an Islamic state was founded in Iran through revolution. The Iranian Revolution was influenced by Third Worldism (a political ideology emphasizing the economic gap between developed Western states and countries in other parts of the world) and by Marxism; particularly important were the vehement critique of Western influence developed by Jalāl Al-e-Ahmed (1923–69) and the Marxist-oriented Islamic reformism promoted by ʿAlī Sharīʿatī (1933–77). The revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900–89), emphasized the themes of defending the disinherited (referred to by the Qurʾānic word mustadhʿafin) and resisting “Westoxification” (Farsi: gharbzadegī), a concept he borrowed from Al-e-Ahmed and Sharīʿatī. He also coined and implemented in the new Islamic republic the concept of velāyat-e faqīh, or government by the Muslim jurist. The Iranian Revolution gave hope to many Islamist movements with similar programs by demonstrating the potential of Islam as a foundation for political mobilization and resistance. It further provided them with a blueprint for political action against governments that they believed had betrayed authentic Islam and grown corrupt and authoritarian. The Islamic republic of Iran also competed with Saudi Arabia at the international level for influence in the Middle East.

Even before the Iranian Revolution, however, offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood were radicalizing political Islam in other parts of the Islamic world. One of the most important figures in this trend was the Egyptian author and Muslim Brotherhood member Sayyid Quṭb. Quṭb, a prolific writer, was executed by the Nasser regime in 1966 but remained an influential voice among Islamists after his death. In his prison writings Quṭb declared that the influence of Western-inspired secularism had caused his society to become un-Islamic and that a new vanguard of Muslims must bring it back to Islam; he saw this as the “solution” to the two failed secular ideologies, capitalism and communism, that had relegated religion to the periphery of government throughout the Islamic world. Thus, a new ummah under the sole sovereignty of Allāh and his revealed word needed to be constituted, because secular nation-states—exemplified by Nasserist Egypt—had led only to barbarity. Quṭb’s ideology was also influenced by Abū al-Aʿlā al-Mawdūdī (1903–79), founder in British India in 1941 of the Islamic Assembly, the first Islamic political party. The Islamic Assembly was reconfigured after the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947 in order to support the establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan.

Beginning in the 1970s, a new generation of political activists who used violence and had no thorough Islamic education declared that their national leaders were “apostates” who had to be eliminated by force. In 1981 the radical group Egyptian Islamic Jihad assassinated Egyptian Pres. Anwar el-Sādāt for the 1979 peace treaty he had made with Israel, among other things. This trend was also present in North Africa and South Asia. In many cases these activists were violently repressed. In some instances conflicts with government authorities led to bloody civil wars, as in Algeria between 1992 and 2002, or to protracted armed struggles between military forces and Islamist groups, as in Egypt from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. This repression resulted in the exile of many Islamist activists to Europe and the Americas and led many others to join such military fronts as the Afghan Jihad.

THE MAINSTREAMING OF ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS

From the late 1970s, Islamist groups were the object of sustained worldwide media attention. Yet nonviolent groups received significantly less attention than the few groups that advocated the use of violence. Nonviolent Islamists often expressed their willingness to participate in legal electoral politics. This became possible in the 1990s, when authoritarian regimes—faced with serious socioeconomic crises and seeking to legitimize themselves in the eyes of the public—implemented policies of limited political liberalization.

The Muslim Brotherhood first engaged in electoral politics in Egypt in the 1980s and in Jordan as early as 1989. In Morocco the Party of Justice and Development elected its first parliamentary representatives in 1997. In Indonesia the Prosperous Justice Party took part in legislative elections in 2004. Turkey allowed Islamists not only to participate in elections but also to govern at the national level. In 2002 Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan, chairman of the Party of Justice and Development, which won a majority of seats in that year’s general elections, formed a pragmatic Islamist government that cultivated diplomatic relations with Western powers.

In all these cases, mainstream opposition Islamist movements demonstrated their power to mobilize voters, a consequence of their social and charitable activism, their programs of good governance, and their fight against government corruption. Despite their tendencies to speak about the universality of the Muslim community, mainstream Islamists remained nationalistic. Holding a conservative view of politics, they abandoned the revolutionary and utopian aspects of radical activism and instead struggled to moralize public and political life—e.g., by protesting “indecent” forms of entertainment and public behaviour and by insisting on accountability for political authorities. When they were allowed to govern, they rarely imposed Sharīʿah-based legislation. Laws inspired by the Islamic legal tradition were implemented, however, in various forms in Iran after the 1979 revolution and in northern Sudan after 1983.

In countries that did not practice electoral politics, movements of opposition devised other means of protest and participation. In Saudi Arabia in 1992 a “Memorandum of Advice” was signed by more than 100 ulama and Islamists and was sent to Sheikh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Bāz, the head of the Board of Senior Ulama and grand mufti of the state, to be passed on to the king. They requested an even greater role for the ulama, a comprehensive implementation of Sharīʿah in Saudi society, social welfare programs, respect for human rights, and a reorientation of Saudi foreign policy along “Islamic” lines.

Contemporary Islamist movements are polarized between two main trends. On the one hand, most movements are mainstream and pragmatic, seeking eventually to govern through participation in the political system and public debate. On the other hand, more-radical opposition groups reject electoral politics and seek revolutionary change, sometimes violently. Some groups alternate between these poles, choosing electoral participation or violence depending upon political circumstances, as in the case of Ḥamās in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Beginning in the last decade of the 20th century, some groups disconnected themselves from national politics in order to join transnational movements.

ISLAM AND GLOBALIZATION: THE AGE OF MOBILITY
Emigration of Muslims from the Middle East and South Asia accelerated after World War II and eventually produced large Muslim communities in the United States, Canada, and the countries of western Europe. While Islam was becoming politicized in the Islamic world, Western Muslims pondered how they could live and practice their religion in a non-Muslim context and whether full participation in Western culture and political life was possible, let alone desirable. These issues prompted the formation of numerous Muslim religious and cultural organizations in the West in the 1980s and ’90s, including the Islamic Society of North America, the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, and the European Council for Fatwa and Research. These groups attempted to provide guidance to Muslims who wished to preserve their Islamic identity while contributing to the political and social life of their adoptive countries.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Western Muslims were still not fully integrated into their societies, and many suffered various forms of discrimination. Many also retained important links with their countries of origin through frequent travel and modern means of communication (e.g., the Internet). Second- and third-generation immigrants often had the opportunity to redefine Islamic practices and beliefs in opposition to their parents and grandparents, whose interpretations they considered too parochial, too strongly influenced by the culture of origin, or not close enough to a more abstract and universal type of Islam. While thus articulating a more personal religious identity, young Western Muslims (like young Muslims in other parts of the world) came to rely on self-proclaimed religious authorities who were not associated with traditional institutions of Islamic learning. For this young generation, the fatwas (formal opinions on questions of Islamic doctrine) issued by such authorities became a crucially important source of answers to political and ethical questions. These fatwas, moreover, tended to represent Islam as a moral rather than a political community.

It was in this context of the Western institutionalization of Islam, and more generally of the transformation of Islam from a blueprint for a political and legal system into an ethics of conduct, that the 2001 September 11 attacks against the United States occurred. The attacks were staged by al-Qaeda, a radical transnational Islamist organization founded in the late 1980s by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national. Bin Laden viewed the world as divided in a war between Muslims and “Crusaders and Zionists.” Although the so-called “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West was largely a theoretical construct, the term itself (popularized from 1993 by the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington) had a tremendously real power to mobilize public perceptions. The notion was reinforced both in the West and in the Islamic world by the September 11 attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War in 2003, and the protracted inability of the international community to solve the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.

Amid the ubiquitous language of global religious warfare, there were internal debates between Muslims about how the religious tradition should be interpreted, particularly as it concerned the use of violence, women’s rights, and interfaith relations. Intellectuals such as Nurcholis Majid in Indonesia and Amina Wadud in the United States attempted to reclaim Islamic traditions by showing how Islam could accommodate liberal-democratic societies and ideas. Their visions of Islam also recognized full gender equality and individual freedom of expression. Meanwhile, such controversies as the banning of the veil in public schools in France and the publication in Denmark of cartoons caricaturing the Islamic faith (and particularly the Prophet Muhammad) became instantly global, transforming intellectual and political debates between Islam and other faiths and within Islam itself and challenging the modes of regulation of Islam in Muslim and non-Muslim countries alike.

[kaima]

Sept 21, 2013 11:59:00 GMT -7 pieter said:

[quote source="/post/83299/thread" timestamp="1379761280" author="Jaga"

Today most branches of Christianity and Judaism are peaceful, while branches of the Sunni- and Shia Islam are not. All over the Muslim world there are tensions and conflicts between Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims.positions along the LOC.

Cheers,
Pieter

Pieter,

My perspective is too heavily colored by the violent Christianity rampant in the USA to aggree that "most branches of Christianity are peaceful". For Judaism, it seems their war party has been in power forever and their state of war will not go away, and there is no flexibility.

It is this perversion of Christianity into a war party in the USA that bothers me, and directly gives me a greaat appreciation for Pope Francis preaching peace, tolerance and understanding in a way that has been lacking in Christianity for decades now.

As far as I am concerned, main stream (American) Christianity has left its Christian principles behind and adapted selfish, greedy, materialistic and hawkish, uncharitable principles in practice and in preaching.

I hope Pope Francis proves successful in turning Christianity back to Christ's basic principles.

[pieter]

Very interesting reply Kaima. Maybe I was looking to much from the European perspective and the jewish diaspora experience. The National religious Zionist branch of judaism isn't peaceful ofcourse, nor their secular far right nationalists. You have extremists and violent fundamentalists and sects in the three main monotheist religions. But I stil think that in Islam there are the most violent extremists and terrorists, if you compare them with the Christian and Jewish fanatics.

Cheers,
Pieter

[karl]

Sept 21, 2013 16:04:06 GMT -7 kaima said:

Sept 21, 2013 11:59:00 GMT -7 pieter said:

[quote source="/post/83299/thread" timestamp="1379761280" author="Jaga"

Today most branches of Christianity and Judaism are peaceful, while branches of the Sunni- and Shia Islam are not. All over the Muslim world there are tensions and conflicts between Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims.positions along the LOC.

Cheers,
Pieter

Pieter,

My perspective is too heavily colored by the violent Christianity rampant in the USA to aggree that "most branches of Christianity are peaceful". For Judaism, it seems their war party has been in power forever and their state of war will not go away, and there is no flexibility.

It is this perversion of Christianity into a war party in the USA that bothers me, and directly gives me a greaat appreciation for Pope Francis preaching peace, tolerance and understanding in a way that has been lacking in Christianity for decades now.

As far as I am concerned, main stream (American) Christianity has left its Christian principles behind and adapted selfish, greedy, materialistic and hawkish, uncharitable principles in practice and in preaching.

I hope Pope Francis proves successful in turning Christianity back to Christ's basic principles.

Dear Kai

I do hope with trust that you will forgive for my intrusion upon this very fine discussion between your self and Pieter. For I do indeed so agree with both of you, because you both are correct.

May I though provide an opinion upon this? Yes, America {The USA} was founded upon Strong Christian principals, and with this through out the trials of time, The concept of truth has prevailed with many trials of fire and steel {break away from England, civil war with brother against brother in the division between the South and North} This was resolved as history has shown.

My point is this: The people of the USA were serverly wounded by two events, one being Pearl Harbour, the other was the attact upon American soil of those hyjacked passenger airplanes and flown into the twin towers in New York and pentagon, whilst the other was lost whilst out of control and striking the ground.

Whithen the confines of these events, recovery was found in resolution in the war for Pearl Habour attact, but, no resolution has been found with the Islamic attact upon American soil. The fight is still in the blood against what ever is Islamic, but with this, a certain amount of frustration. For Osama bin Laden has been killed and his body disposed of. But, no victory. For it would appear that the American blood is still hot for revenge against which ever Islamics, but who, and where?

Perhaps you are correct with the theses of America turning the back against the pricipals of Chritainity it was founded upon so long ago. But, I do not think so. What I think is this: A temporary time for healing and readjustment from some trying years. Given some time for readjustment and healing. It is my personal feeling, the Americans will regain, reposition and heal in self.

For as you may surmise, I do hold high confidence in Americans to prevail no matter the odds, they will find a way. But, with this, a little bit of tribal wisdom once heard from some South African bush people so long ago in past:: You may shoot your guns into the air,,but you will never hit the sky::

Karl

[Jaga]

Sept 21, 2013 11:59:00 GMT -7 pieter said:

Today most branches of Christianity and Judaism are peaceful, while branches of the Sunni- and Shia Islam are not. All over the Muslim world there are tensions and conflicts between Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims. Look outside the Arab world and the Middle-east and Northern-Africa for instance. The Nagorno-Karabakh War, the ongoing Islamic insurgency in the Philippines. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) is an Islamist group formed in the 1960s following the Jabidah massacre to achieve greater Bangsamoro autonomy in the southern Philippines. The MNLF took part in terrorist attacks and assassinations to achieve their goals. The government in Manila sent troops into the southern Philippines to control the insurgency.

Pieter,

I agree that there are lots of extreme Muslims in all these places you pointed out and even more - for instance Sudan or Mali, Timbuktu, recently. But Christians also start the wars, maybe it is not under Christianity emblem, still, for instance Iraq's war by US. Israel is also very militant, it did two wars with Lebanon and in Gaza during the last 2 years.
I agree that Islamists are responsible by some crippling wars.... we do not even hear a lot about.

[kaima]

Sept 21, 2013 17:59:29 GMT -7 pieter said:

Very interesting reply Kaima. Maybe I was looking to much from the European perspective and the jewish diaspora experience. The National religious Zionist branch of judaism isn't peaceful ofcourse, nor their secular far right nationalists. You have extremists and violent fundamentalists and sects in the three main monotheist religions. But I stil think that in Islam there are the most violent extremists and terrorists, if you compare them with the Christian and Jewish fanatics.

Cheers,
Pieter

Yes, it is difficult to argue against the points as you present them. Your perspective seems well balanced.

I am still unhappy, however, with the degree of un-Christian war loving hatred too often displayed in America, as well as the totally unbending support the USA gives to the war parties in Israel.

Having said that, I will finish by returning to your writing above, and the balance that it brings to the topic.

Kai