Allan, With Jesuit “soldiers of christ” and Teutonic ,an order of knights influences how could not be fiesty?

Please don’t think I am picking on you. I appreciate the chance to voice my ideas and you are giving me the opportunity to do that on a subject I feel is very important.

For my cognitive faculties, you are drawing way too many conclusions of the nature of Islam and muslims from examples that in my opinion belong to the correlation does not mean causation species of logical fallacies.

This is the paragraph in question from your post.
“However, it is interesting to note the decided lack of “moderate” Moslems when it comes to confronting Al Qaeda on their home turf. While I agree about the poor citizens in both Iraq and Afghanistan being killed in a war that was not of their choosing, would I also not be remiss in remarking upon the fact that the majority of the casualties being inflicted upon those people are from fellow Moslems? You’d be hard pressed to argue that point when Sunnis and Shia are killing each other with reckless abandon all in the name of Allah.”

I think it is natural for some Iraqis and Afghanis and others to see Al Qaeda as a natural ally, Does “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” seem applicable as much as some inherent defect in Islam? I think you might be giving religion way to much play in all of this. Perhaps because much of your reality is based in it from your Jesuit education and upbringing? In From my secular view point mostly I see Religious contexts as secondary and mostly mostivational in nature.
Primarily I see the fighting between the Shiites and Sunni to be political, the result of a occupation, a quasi- proxy war and a civil war all at the same time. Groups that happen to be divided along sectarian lines and christians(us)are all taking part. The sects which happen to also coincide with political divisions are greedily grasping for power as a result of a void created by the toppling of the dictatorship and the installation of an American puppet government. They are not fighting each other over interpretations of the Quran. If this is not true why didn’t they have an unrelenting “holy war” before we got there?

If we want to use a similiar example from Christendom let’s look at Ireland. Does the constant fighting between protestants and Catholics prove a tremendous flaw in the validity of Christianity or do you see beyond the religious issues to a battle for control betwen Irish nationals and the interests of the British? I see the later. The religious soldiers are pawns.

I don’t dislike or mistrust you because you are affiliated with a religion that has “Skeletons in the closet”. I do hope that the parent of that religion, Christendom does not pack the closet further with bones. I hope that you would ease up on your opinion of a people that happen to have a religious history in Islam and some skeletons in the closet.
I think the confusion detracts from what you have to contribute to your hopes to “find our way back to those ideals that made us great and assert a sense of decent leadership again.”

Then you said:
While I fear that the cause is lost in Iraq, I don’t disagree with the underlying rationale. I think nation building is worthwhile and I agree that justice is all important.

I hope somehow we can have a decent ending to this situation. Imagine the new wounds it has caused that will cause people to be vunerable to extremism. We will reap what we have sown probably.I am not greatful that my children will grow up to that rotten fruit but I will tell them we are in great part responsable.

I simply don’t agree that Nation building for any higher purpose was on the table. Besides there were lots of parties or coalitions that might have liked to have done the nation building given the oil and the strategic importance of influencing the region . Maybe they would have been more diplomatic and had less brutal results. Perhaps Iraq would have had an eventual solution on their own just might not have been so much in our interests and I don’t think we had grave concerns over Iraqi quality of life issues. I think there are problems in the world we could have easily influenced for the better that we have let go to the ruin of many more lives, mainly in Africa. greed maybe even desperation took over our leadership.

You will probably continue to have a hard time putting your finger on your mistrust of Muslims. I think we have an deeply conditioned fear and hatred of Muslims and especially Arabs. It probably has roots in the fact that they were one of the last non-european expansionistsa dn the target of there expansion was Christendom . I do believe there has been a a propaganda campaign during my entire 45 years on this planet and can only imagine that people raised under Christian traditions are even more conditioned.
Spastic hateful commentary on this blog from devout Christians and my observations of George Bush plying his constituents seem to confirm this belief. For the record. I am not intolerant.