Not all Muslims are Terrorists. By Del.
We were at a Xmas party at my daughter's house, and being in the artistic community in Asheville , they always get a very diverse bunch of people. We met a woman is perhaps 50, from Turkey , lives here most of the time, but still has property and family there. We met, chatted in general, but she mentioned how she really loves Catholics because as a girl she was sent to a Catholic high school, as Muslim immigrant with bare English. The nuns went out of their way to really help her, put sticky note with English words on everything to help her learn, the kids were nice to her, and she felt really comfortable and well taken care of there.
Her husband died young so she became a single mother, and worked her butt off to take care of him and make a good living. I don't know what she did for a living, but she is clearly well off.
We then moved on to religion, with me trying to be careful, but next thing I knew she was tell me how terribly distressing it is for her to watch the fundamentalists take so much power in Turkey, and how now when she visits she has to be careful about a bunch of things. So I asked her if my understanding of the Quran vs. the Sunnah and Sharia was valid, and she immediately told me so. She went into detail how when Mohammed died, it was his son-in-law who took power when it should have been his daughter, and how the male dominated culture of those tribes have twisted Islamic teaching in a variety of ways ever since. She separates what she sees in the religion from the cultures that overlap it, for instance honor killing and FGM have nothing to do with Islam. She is what she calls a "liberal" which means she accepts the Quran as the word of God, but not necessarily all the stuff in the Sunnah and Sharia. Focusing on the early and much friendlier parts of the Quran leaves her free to be somewhat Westernized, to not be a second class citizen, and to not accept the duty of jihad against all infidels. And in fact, to enjoy living here and having many non Muslim friends.
She was quite emphatic about wishing the world would wipe out ISIS, but is irritated that the other Muslim countries won't do it on their own, but wait for the USA and others to do a lot of the work. She is against the Madrassa system that brainwashes little boys and tells girls to just be dumb, obedient wives. In short, she's a lot like us, and we are looking forward to seeing her again when we're back there. She also invited us to visit here in Turkey some time, and that's may work out.
But the problem is that worldwide, Islam is basically four levels. One not really large level is like this lady. Next comes a larger level of those who are not Fundamentalists, but serious about their religion and prone to be suspicious of the West and others. After that comes the really big group of Fundamentalists, whose numbers have increased by an order of magnitude over the last 40 years. They won't go on jihad, but will support those who do. Finally, there's the very small fraction who are the real nutcase killers of the "caliphate" , Boko Haram, etc. Until a lot of Muslim scholars and major personalities really condemn the jihadists and motivate the rest to stop supporting them, the problems will continue.
We Westerners cannot really fix this, we can only fight it in limited ways and wait for it to get better. Sadly , in fighting it there will be mistakes and overkill, and innocent Muslims will pay the price. As did innocent Germans who hated Hitler but were stuck there under the bombs, as did the 99% innocent Japanese Americans who were interned. Conflict on a big scale always has victims. Personally, I believe in taking very serious actions in some places, like ISIS , and accepting that it cannot be done without collateral damage. In the end, totally destroying ISIS and every one of its believers we can get to is a right and necessary thing, and that it'll be messy is their fault, not ours.
One of the things the lady said was that she believes that soon Muslims in the USA will be ready to turn in any nutcases among them, which so far they've been reluctant about. I hope she's right.
A few of the various vets I know have really gone all the way into the "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" thinking, and are really ready to expel every Muslim from this country, trusting none of them. I think that's unfortunate, and while I sure as hell don't minimize the problem with Islam today, I don't want us to get nuts about it and go after every Muslim with hate and fear. I sure want a lot more intel on every mosque here, and I really want US Muslims to start standing up and turning in every idiot they know who starts that drift into jihadism. The CAIR people fight all this, and I don't think well of them at all. I really wish for some more famous Muslims here to stand up and scream against radical Islam. But when we can't even get our President to use the words, and we have all the idiot Liberals who don't want us to hurt any Muslim's feelings at all, we sure have a problem.
I read that Pew estimates that radicalized Muslims make up ten percent. They say that in the US, In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say that that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified 9leaving 14% to be scared of--but which ones are in the 14%?). An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified in these circumstances. (See: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/) I think if you add in those who actively or tacitly support and approve of them, it may be 20%. In any case, ten percent is 160,000,000 million folks worldwide who would be happy to see you murdered for your beliefs. I note that, contrary to those who say Islam is a Religion of Peace, with no basis they can cite in the Holy Qur'an, the scared Hadiths or other Islamic scripture, the more religious a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be a jihadist. Given the long history of slaughter in the name of Allah, mostly of fellow Muslims with slightly different believes, terror is as Islamic as it gets. As Mohammad said, "I have been made victorious through terror" (Bukhari 4.52.220--Bukhari is considered one of the two strongest and most authentic of the Sunni Hadiths, the traditions and stories of the Prophet which all Islamic scholars say are essential to understanding the Qur'an.)
I believe that the extremists are still outnumbered by the moderates who just want to live their lives and don't want to kill people who don't share their beliefs. I had a Muslim health tech (CNA) at the VA who took care of me nights on two or three of IS) from Nigeria next door. He said he celebrated Christmas with his Christian friends and they celebrated Eid with him. I wish we could send him on the road--but they would likely kill him. But there is problem one with the moderates. They may speak moderate to us, but around very religious Muslims, they stay silent--because to do otherwise is to invite violence and murder as they are considered apostates by the extremists. our NATO ally and Obama's friend Turkish Premier Erdogan says there is no such thing as "moderate Islam."
The Second problem is that there is no way to know when a seemingly moderate, peaceful Muslim has been radicalized on the Internet or at the Mosque, and will suddenly "Go jihad" on you. The San Bernardino terrorists murdered co-workers who thought they were moderates, had thrown them a baby shower with gifts only a few weeks before they were slaughtered. How we cope with these to problems, I don't know. It is what has so many people so scared they are willing to support a know-nothing blowhard like Donald Trump.
There are groups that try to lobby for a moderate Muslim viewpoint. See: http://www.muslimsforamerica.us/
Also there's AIFD and M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D. the Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) http://aifdemocracy.org/about/staff/founder-president/ Dr. Jasser served 11 years as a medical officer in the U. S. Navy. AIFD seeks to counter political Islam the ideology that fuels radical Islamists. AIFD’s current passions include the Muslim Liberty Project(MLP) and involvement in the American Islamic Leadership Coalition (AILC). The Muslim Liberty Project seeks to instill the ideas of liberty into young Muslim adults in order to inoculate them against the viral threat of political Islam. Naturally, CAIR opposes them and the Obama administration has ignored and marginalized them.
~Bob
It took the 30 Years War to convince Europeans that violence in to settle religious differences was a not a good idea. By the time it was over, most of central Europe was devastated...and a French Catholic cardinal was subsidizing Protestant Swedes to fight Catholic Austrians. After 1648, when the new system of nation-states began to take shape, wars were fought by professionals for dynastic aims for nearly 150 years. It was a period when war was called the sport of kings, and civilians from states in conflict had some hope of safety for their lives and property, and violence in the name of religion disappeared. Perhaps the Islamic world will someday learn a similar lesson, but I fear if will take an experience such as the horrific 30 Year War to bring that about. Of course, it may be that is exactly what is starting now. --Chuck.
Scary to think that an absurd overstatement of the obvious (the title) may come as a new idea, or worse yet debatable argument, for many people. I agree with nearly every idea that Del offers. It is also true that a potential 160M willing terrorists and supporters is a very extreme problem. Lastly, I have no doubt there were many good German citizens who, in the 1930s, thought Hitler was a no-nothing blow hard. I am very concerned that he may be our next President. Given that Hillary is the likely other option, the resulting lowest voter turnout in history could elect Trump. Just like the good Muslims that are afraid to speak out against the Jihadists and the good Germans who were afraid to speak out against Hitler, I wonder if the good Republicans will work to defeat Trump from getting the nomination(?). --Bruce
Maybe not, but consider the threshold for an epidemic, as cited below: An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ep
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