quote:
Originally posted by JQ:
quote:
posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

A vast percentage of Muslims are sympathetic to terrorism and openly endorse it.
Assuming this is fact, why do you think they are that way? Do you it's because of their religion? Maybe they don't appreciate interventions and sanctions. Do they hate our freedom, or our interventions?
I think U.S./Western interventions and sanctions are rationalized by Muslims as the reason for violence against the U.S. and Israel. But that rationalization dismisses the situation that brought about U.S. intervention in the first place.

And also dismisses that the Muslim Imams are very active in stoking the fires of Arab hatred, raising the call for Jihad.
Every one of the Muslim terror groups (Al Qaida, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Ansar al Islam, etc.) is clearly an Islam-based group. Islamic religion is the core of it. Glamorization of martyrdom for Islam is the core of it. Quotation of the Quran --by the Muslim clergy-- is the core of it.

I'll acknowledge that other social elements factor in, such as Arab nationalism, and jealousy of the industrialized West. But the core is clearly Islam itself.
People don't talk about wanting to be suicide bombers simply because they disagree with a nation's (the U.S.'s) policies. Clearly, a much deeper belief system is the cause for that.
And clearly, the rhetoric for that comes from Islamic leaders throughout the Muslim world: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Indonesia, and a violent Muslim minority in the Phillipines.


quote:
Originally posted by JQ:
quote:
posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

The children were told that if they die for Allah (martyrdom), they are assured a place in heaven.
That is extremely sick! But is it an example of a "misguided belief system" or sick people taking advantage of naive children?
Perhaps I said it more directly than it is usually said, what motivates children to be suicide bombers, or to deliberately blow themselves up with mines in a battlefield.

But surely you've seen this belief-system described in the news before.

I agree, it certainly is a misguided belief system, but it is not deviant from the teachings of Islam, and it is the clerics themselves who proselytize that belief system.

While the Arab sect of Wahabism is far from the only sect of Islam teaching violent crush of dissent, it is an example that was highlighted in a lengthy story in the August 5, 2002 issue of TIME magazine. TIME points out that wherever Wahabi priests travel as missionaries (Afghanistan, Sudan, Minadao in the Phillipines, Chechnya...) these locations have become centers of terrorism and violence.