When you hear the words bomb, suicide bomber, terrorist, explosion, etc. does Islamic Terrorist come to mind? It seems like almost every story I’ve read in the last several years about terrorists, suicide bombers, explosions killing and maiming innocent civilians somewhere in the world has almost always included the word Islamic or Muslim in the same story. When all you have is a hammer then everything’s a nail I suppose. Here we go again, the daily Islamic Terrorist bombing from somewhere in the world. It’s beginning to seem like wherever there are unhappy Muslims, bombs are soon to follow. Are killing innocent civilians the only solution they can come up with to solve their problems? Just because it sometimes has the desired effect, does that make it morally acceptable? Do the hoped for ends justify any means? How do muslims in all these countries go about justifying killing innocent, non-combatants and their children? What twisted logic could they possibly be employing? Just today I read “BOMBAY, India:-- Car bombs exploded at a crowded jewelry market and a historic landmark in Bombay on Monday, killing at least 44 people, wounding 150 others and shaking buildings in India’s financial capital.
The bombs, hidden in the trunks of two taxis, blew up within five minutes of each other, police said. Several people were being interrogated, including one taxi driver.
Police were focusing their investigation on Muslim militant groups.
‘There are many jehadi groups out, let loose by the enemy country,’ said Ranjit Sharma, a police commissioner. Jehadi groups are operated by Islamic militants.
The ‘enemy country’ was a clear reference to Pakistan, India’s longtime rival. Such an accusation could threaten to increase tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors, though Pakistani officials quickly denounced the attack as ‘wanton targeting of civilians.’
Sharma specifically mentioned the Students Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, a militant students’ group outlawed in September 2001, and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, one of more than a dozen Islamic rebel groups fighting Indian security forces in Kashmir since 1989, seeking independence for the divided Himalayan province or its merger with Muslim dominated Pakistan.”
Are you talking about Israel-Palestine? Do you know the statistics http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Total_Casualties.asp?
Are you aware of Sharon’s refugee camp purges?
It appears you may have missed my point or perhaps this is a personal or hot button issue for you?
Or maybe I missunderstood you? What point exactly were you trying to make about my original post, if any? Were you attempting some kind of justification or line of reasoning? Did you miss the phrase “somewhere in the world” or “BOMBAY, India”
I thought my point was plainly stated and obvious. No offense intended.
Thanks anyway, jay
Waco?
The issue is more of fundamentalism than of Islam, although in part the number of radically different intepretations of religious texts doesn’t help matters. According to the CIAWF, global religious belief is split:
Christians 32.79% (of which Roman Catholics 17.33%, Protestants 5.62%, Orthodox 3.51%, Anglicans 1.31%), Muslims 19.6%, Hindus 13.31%, Buddhists 5.88%, Sikhs 0.38%, Jews 0.24%, other religions 12.83%, non-religious 12.53%, atheists 2.44% (2001 est.)
When we consider that Catholics and Protestants spent half their time hating each other as well, we’ll have to concede that Christianity isn’t a useful statistical grouping.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Basically, every group has their demons. The majority of Christians don’t take the world of the Bible as literally as Muslims; the majority of Christian fundamentalists don’t get so worked up as Muslim fundamentalists. Is how I see part of it, anyway.
Yeah, there are Christian fundamentalists on Death Row for “pro-life” killings (how ironic!). In Northern Ireland there was a very fundamentalistic school wanted to use corporal punishment on children. So yes every conviction has it’s bigots.
Islamic fundamentalists do spring to mind more now then, lets say since there proved there hate of America. The Jehadi are seen as a bigger and more dangerous fret to western culture then most other terrists groups like the far more dangerous ones in Columbia (which america had to supply 2-3 billion dollars in military aid) as Kajun and Metavoid tryed to point out i think that there are many other less publicist fundamentalists; terrists bodys all over world in Africa, South america, Asia or Austrilasia or anywhere not western enough seen as a fret (which they might or might not be). There are many extreme bodys that are linked up to Islamic fundamentalists that perhaps have know reason too (like sadams weapons) apart from ower leaders or maybe just a natural western fear of difference, like the greeks ower forfathers fear of the babarian (who knows perhaps this is some western reminiscence of Troy).
Before 9/11 would Islamic fundamentalists be seen as the most powerful extreme? well this bombing in India (which was automatically seen as Pakistans military cues lack of intelligence) looks like a more wider argument over India/Pakistan; if i remember so the media done a good job of blowing that into world war 3 and i think theyve done a good job of blowing Islamic fundamentalists into the realm of James Bond.
From the questions you are posing, it seems like you are trying to explore and understand the nature of terrorism. I think that it is an issue of fundamentalism. I would say that most all muslims have non-extreme views, after all Islam spun off from Christianity; however, the small number of fundamentalists who are carrying out these attacks have their own set of morals. I think the main issue with terrorism is indoctrination. So long as certain fundamentalists have the ability to indoctrinate young 19 and 20 year olds into feeling so passionate about a cause that they are willing to blow themselves up, then terrorism will continue to be a “global problem.”
But ultimately terrorists cannot wage conventional war so they use suicide bombers as their weapon of choice to illicit fear. From what I’ve seen terrorism really does not accomplish anything for those who carry out the acts, but what terrorism tries to do is create fear in people. The terrorists really have no power so their way of trying to gain power is to try to scare people. But like I say the issue is indoctrination because how else can one explain why a 19 or 20 year old would want to blow themselves up. So I really don’t know if there is a solution.
I do agree with some earlier discussion that fundamentalism is not isolated to Islam. There can be Christian fundamentalists as well. What about David Koresh and his Branch Davidians, of Waco Texas, I think indoctrination was clearly used there as well. Maybe if we could teach everyone to be “critical thinkers†then fundamentalists would have no one to recruit and that would solve our problems.
For what it’s worth, the deadliest act of terrorism in months, the Najaf bombing, from which they’re still tallying the death count, was perpetrated AGAINST Muslims.
Very good point. Thanks.
“I teach you love of all peoples.” Zarathustra
From alt.muslim:
Increasing Number Of Americans Link Islam And Violence
Ever since the attacks of 9/11, Islam and various acts of violence in the world have been commonly linked themes in the nightly news. Now that Americans have been bathed in these images for years now, it isn’t surprising to learn of the results of a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center that reveals - among other things - that 44% of Americans feel that Islam encourages violence (an increase from 25% in 2002). With suicide bombings now commonplace all over the Muslim world, this is hardly surprising. “Our findings in this area actually point in different directions,” said Pew Forum executive director Melissa Rogers. “On the one hand, there’s certainly an increase in the number of Americans who believe that Islam encourages violence. Yet at the same time, a narrow majority of the public continues to have favorable views of Muslim-Americans.” While some may take comfort in the concurrent finding of high favorable attitudes toward Muslims (in fact, they remain nearly twice as high as before 9/11), other statistics tell a more sobering story. 40% of Americans would not vote for a well-qualified Muslim candidate for president, as opposed to 20% for an evangelical Christian one. (Don’t feel too bad - 52% also wouldn’t elect a well-qualified atheist.) While it would be easy to blame outspoken evangelists for stoking fear of Islam, the poll showed that Catholics and secular Americans experienced the same attitude shift. The same organization got interesting results in another recent poll of predominantly Muslim countries, finding high marks for American ideals such as democracy but low marks on American policies. So what’s in a poll, anyway? Well, the results are pretty much what you would expect given the level of misinformation and distrust on both sides, and will require concrete change on the ground - both there and here - if the numbers are to change for the better.
Nigel, I agree with you almost to the letter of your post.
From another post:
It may not be worth much at all. I was making a generalization and everyone knows it’s not difficult to find an exception to a generalization in a specific instance. I never said the targets were never Muslim, but just because the target is muslim that doesn’t rule out the possibility of the perpetrator also being muslim. Muslims do kill muslims, look at the Iraq-Iran war.
I’m not talking about muslims per se, but rather muslim fanatics and fundamentalist. As mentioned, many groups have extremist sub-groups or branches to them. I think that, in and of itself, apart from Islam, is dangerous. But of all the fundamentalist and fanatics in today’s world, it seems to me the Muslim fundies and fanatics are engaging in more than their fair share of murdering innocents through terrorist acts. Most of us seem to agree that there is a danger to the extremism and fanaticism that tends to go hand in hand with fundamentalism. Fundamentalist would probably be that way no matter what religious group they belonged to. It seems to me they tend to be younger, often idealistic, uninformed, inexperience, closed minded people that are indoctrinated or brainwashed even and then continually fueled by charismatic leaders.
I never said muslims were the only terrorists, I meant to say, and perhaps I was too vague, that over the last 10 years or so, fanatical and fundamentalist muslims seem to me to be increasingly associated with terrorist acts. If you looked at all the reports of terrorist acts in the last 10 years lets say, I think you’d find that the majority are tied to muslim fundamentalist or muslim fanatics like the Taliban.
There are some people that think terrorism is ok as long as it’s justified. That is it a valid tool that can be used against their perceived enemies. Personally, I can’t see how people can justify murdering innocent women, children and men. This is why I believe dropping two A-bombs on Japan was wrong and we, the USA, should not have done it. Same thing with the terrorists, I don’t think they are justified in killing innocent people. There ought to be some rules in a conflict, combatants shouldn’t be allowed to do just anything to each other.
I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but the Islamic religion had a pretty violent start, Muhammad was a much better swordsman than Jesus or Buddha. But Muhammad, violent and murderous as he supposedly was, was no terrorist and I don’t think he’d condone it either.
I wonder just when it was that muslims began thinking that terrorism was a viable option? I wonder where they got the idea and why it’s become so popular of late?
Metavoid:
Paddling naughty school children, because they believe you spoil the child if you spare the rod, is quite different from flying passenger jets into buildings killing ~3000 innocent people, don’t you think?
Those teachers aren’t fanatical mass murders of innocents, they’re only guilt of being behind the times, pardon the pun. A mere 30 years ago in the US you would have had a hard time finding even a public school that didn’t condone and daily make use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary tool.
Muslim extremist need to quit resorting to terrorism in an attempt to get what they want. It’s bad for humanity, they’re making all muslims look bad by association and last but not least, as someone already mentioned, the use of terrorism has never achieved anything significant for the terrorists.
Although I hate to prejudge in any instance, I do agree with jay that there is a tendency to associate acts of terrorism with muslim fundamentalists. But it could also be that terrorism is most associated with muslim fundamentalists because they carry out the most radical and extreme forms of terrorism.
I do feel that muslim fundamentalist behavior is bad for Islam as a religion but it must be recognized that Islam does not condone terrorism; it is just that certain lslamic fundamentalists have declared Jihad which is a “holy war” against the western world which accounts for an increasing number of terrorist acts around the world.
Here’s an interesting article about terrorism.
csmonitor.com/2003/0902/p18s01-lehl.html