Now that you have seemingly pulled your head out of the sand, let’s review:

1. Like I said waaaaaaaaay up there, we haven’t learned from our mistakes in the past.
1a. What was Christianity doing at 1200 years of age? Exactly.
2. We had our chance to get Saddam outta there in 1991 and didn’t do it.
3. Supporting the Shah’s dictatorship fostered the Iran we have to deal with today.
4. If we invade Iran, we need to also invade Saudi since they’re a terrorist supporting regime who wants to go nuclear…

Got anything else for me, Laura? You try so hard but can’t come through…*smh*

Public memory is proverbially short. The former Soviet Union’s back was broken in Afghanistan and the Soviet empire disintegrated owing to its failure to subdue the independent Afghanis.

In history all empire builders always avoided taking on Afghanistan directly or for a prolonged period.

But some people simply refuse to learn the lessons from history.

When will they ever learn…Oh! when will they ever learn!!!

Afghanistan is the most volatile region. The present ill-informed rulers in Europe and the US have fiddled with that country without learning any lessons from history. Afghans have never been kind even to their rival tribal leaders/groups, leave aside the occupation forces from the West.

Afghans are fiercely independent and to get involed in their affairs is suicidal. You may call them fanatics or by any other name…they are fiercely independent. And the US/NATO forces would have to kill each and every Afghan to claim any victory.

If the US has failed to locate Osama bi Laden in such a long time, the forces should concede defeat and move out with dignity. If it is going to be a fight to the finish, as the Bush administration appears to claim, then don’t complain. Be brave and just face the music!!!

“I wish to add that from experience gained during my stint with the Saudi Gazette that it would not be right to believe that the Arab population fully believes/supports the stance of their rulers.”

Never underestimate how much the image of some of those common people partying in the streets on 9/11 burned into the minds of lots of Americans. Later some tried to claim the footage was fake. Some said it was staged. Some quick research makes it seem more likely than not that it was true. That many in the Arab street thought it was a justifiable comeuppance. Look it up on snopes.com which has one of the best summaries of it.

Look at how the tribes of the borderlands of Afghanistan/Pakistan support the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The minority isn’t as small as you make it sound and even a minority of extreme fanatics out of a billion people makes for a lot of murderers and those who support them.

Dictator supporting culture

Here you are contradicting yourself. You condemn our support for dictators, and simultaneously condemn us for getting rid of saddam hussein and attempting to establish democracy. It seems that the left is about nothing more than being a movement to oppose America regardless of what we do. We are bad for supporting dictators, and we are bad for overthrowing dictators.

Native American killing, African enslaving

Here you are comparing things America did centuries ago to the practices of the muslim world TODAY.

What I find particularly troubling about Laura’s comment is that every negative in Muslim societies is assigned to “Islam’ generically, as if the religion of Islam has some malevolent gene that is fated to produce these symptoms.

Who said anything about genetics. I’m talking about ideology and the koran.

It is foolhardy to hope to change the people and their lifestyle overnight by invading countries

I didn’t say we should invade every muslim country. But what I am saying is that we ought not pretend that these medieval cultures are equal to our own and ought to be respected. We should at least shun countries that engage in such barbaric practices.

Also there are ways of effecting change other than militarily, however with regards to Iran, the danger from that country acquiring nuclear weapons is too near to wait for change. That doesn’t necessarily mean an invasion, but it does mean an air attack on its nuclear facilities.

You are making value judgments based on results, not anything inherent in ancient texts. Christianity has evolved enormously over the centuries and continues to evolve, according to the societies from which the successful leaders emerge. For Christianity to evolve, the society had to evolve.

The interpretations and applications we don’t like, you call ‘twisted’. That’s what Islamic scholars are doing even as we argue. That is good, because it leads to conclusions that we like.
But any religion can be made to turn a corner, according to the people claiming authority over its application.

Our major difference is that I believe, even though Gad may be God, religions are man made. It is men who interpret and apply. Men do not share God’s transcendence, and sometimes they can be just flat out wrong.

A more fruitful approach, in my view, is to stop classifying religions on a good/bad scale and seek to find lessons in any and all that can enlighten us, to benefit all humanity.

And I brought up the example of the extreme misogyny practiced by some Muslim groups because by even discussing ‘inequality for women’ as you might see it in Christian churches in conjunction with discussion of the “ills of Islam” as defined by Laura, you are making a false analogy. You may see Christian interpretation of gender roles as unfair, but there is just no comparison between this and the kind of oppression that is taking place against women in some Muslim cultures today.

As a side note, it might surprise some people to learn that the current Pope has issued new guidelines in order to get back to the idea that priests are servants of the people and servants of the Lord. One example: the priests must clean the vessels after Communion. When you look at it in this light, it’s easier to see that women aren’t being demeaned when they aren’t granted the right to become priests. The priest position is not supposed to be an exalted one and you have to take all of this out of the context of secular society to better understand it. That said, I’ll repeat that if people disagree they are free to do so and refrain from joining the Catholic Church. It’s not a democratic institution and isn’t meant to be one, so the talk about “dragging feet” on an issue just doesn’t make any sense. The Church isn’t supposed to conform to popular views of the day, it’s supposed to speak universal truth for all time.

It is my contention that how a religion is applied reflects the people who subscribe to a particular interpretation of it, not the
religion itself. Thus when we assess Islam or Christianiy, we should really address the practioners of a certain interpretation instead, and this is a matter of culture and social groupings.

It follows that I must reject all your comparative examples. If Muslim countires are intolerant of other religions, this reflects the thinking of the leadership in these countries, not Islam. There have been numerous examples in history (notably in Spain before Queen Isabella) where Islam co-existed with Christianity and Judaism remarkably peacefully. Apparently they applied a different interpretaion of Islam.
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“Second point is, don’t you think that it’s ludicrous to compare the inability to become Pope with having one’s genitals mutilated”
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??? I made no such comparison. Again, what you bring up demonstrates cultural and secular differences.

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I’m sincerely sorry if you felt I was singling out the Catholic Church for attack. It was my intention to simply point out the different interprestations of what Chirstianity is.
Not being Catholic, I don’t have a vote. But as an observer, I can’t help but form views of different applications of Christinity as well as Islam and Judaism and Budhism, et al. Personally, I can’t accept the ‘separate but equal’ position in any religion, but it’s up to the women in each religion to come to their own conclusions.

My question is what better reason than securing or protecting vital national strategic assets is there for going to war?

There isn’t and shouldn’t be. But the architects of the Iraq War considered it to be in our vital interest, which is a dangerous line of thinking.

Chris –

“Democratizingâ€? Iraq is really just a facade for strategic control of Middle East oil.”

Absolutely, no doubt. That has been the goal of all European, Russian, and US foreign policy (and now China, too) towards Iraq and Iran since oil became such a critical and strategic commodity.

My question is what better reason than securing or protecting vital national strategic assets is there for going to war? Any other reason that doesn’t serve the true interests of the country is wasting the lives of our soldiers. When you get right down to it, that is the real reason we entered WWII, which is always held up as ‘The Last Moral War’.

I agree with your general point though, that the religion itself isn’t at fault, it’s that it is being twisted.

I can use a comedy quote in the same vein…”If guns can be blamed for killing people, that means I can blame misspelled words on my pencil” – Larry the Cable Guy

“Democratizing” Iraq is really just a facade for strategic control of Middle East oil.

Second point is, don’t you think that it’s ludicrous to compare the inability to become Pope with having one’s genitals mutilated and sewn together because you are strictly considered chattel? I find it breathtaking that anyone could even make comparisons about two situations that are so disparate.

I agree with your general point though, that the religion itself isn’t at fault, it’s that it is being twisted.

That is very faulty reasoning, in my view. Any religion is practiced by people in particular cultures, and they interpret the sacred texts to fit into their secular view of the world.

How to explain, then, Chrstendom’s footdragging re the role of womnen, which is being argued in some quarters even today? Is it Christianity that bans a woman from becoming a Pope or an archbihsop, or is it the culture of the practioners of Christianity
who are responsible?

The motivation to occupy a foreign country to modernize their society isn’t that much different than what the colonial powers of Europe did in the 16th-20th centuries. The belief that another culture is inferior or uncivilized, somehow justifies our actions. We persist in the fallacy that making them over in our own image will somehow be welcomed by the native populations- that we are doing it for their own good.

I hate it that so many have become so xenophobic since 9/11.