Rand Simberg wrote:

Unfortunately, it seems that we're going to have to bomb
Londonistan... Or the Brits are going to have to do some mass
deportations (a disturbing number of British Muslims believe that the
July 7th subway bombings were justified). There are no pretty
solutions.

Yes, this is unfortunately very true.

When a crime is committed, what we naturally wish to do is:

- punish those who are responsible, in order to

- protect those who are not culpable.

This means protecting us from terror - and protecting those Muslims who
are innocent of terrorist ambitions from discrimination or other
consequences of things which are not their fault.

There is nothing wooly-headed or bleeding-heart liberal about wanting
to do what is right and just. Where the wooly-headed liberalism comes
in is if we decide to include a big chunk of "bad Muslims" in what we
treat as "good Muslims".

The only thing missing from my brilliant, incisive political analysis
is that we haven't yet learned how to read minds.

Different mainstream news media outlets are presenting divergent
perspectives on the current conflict raging in southern Lebanon. Some
show Israel as indiscriminately attacking the civilian population, as
well as hampering aid efforts and preventing evacuation of civilians
from the areas of fighting. Others note that Israel is fighting in
areas that were effectively under the control of Hezbollah, a terrorist
group that has killed Americans, not the Lebanese government, and that
Israel is taking scrupulous care to avoid civilians, and current
civilian casualties are only what is to be expected from a major war
such as Hezbollah has unleashed.

I have always feared that the unity of the democratic world, already
badly strained by the war in Iraq, could be shattered by new events.
For example, if China were to do something stupid with respect to
Taiwan, so that the U.S. would need to take action - and one of the
indirect consequences of that action would be the collapse of Chinese
central authority, with an ensuing famine in which millions starve.

Given the way the conflict in Lebanon is being presented in non-U.S.
media, and the U.S. support of Israel, forces are at work to isolate
the United States now.

If the European news media is handling this so as to put Israel and the
United States in an unfavorable light, how is the news media of the
Arab world doing?

What we want is simple. No more terrorism. A world in which Israel has
the same peace and security as the United States, and where that is the
level of peace and security we *thought* we had before 9/11. Consistent
with that, the United States must be respected, admired, and loved, by
all the world's people.

But it is difficult to stir a warm glow of approval in people's hearts
if you have to subject them to a harsh military occupation to keep them
from doing you violence. The long-term objectives and the short-term
objectives are at war with each other.

It was possible to turn around Germany's thinking at the end of the
Second World War. This was for a number of reasons. Nazi rule, being
twelve years old, had shallow roots in German society. The threat of
the Soviet Union, against which the United States was the only bulwark,
was clear and obvious. The Holocaust gave Germans reason to be ashamed
of their country's past.

Can we achieve a similar turn-around in the thinking of the Muslim
world?

What I want to see for the world's majority Islamic nations is:

- full equality for non-Muslim minorities,

- an absence of pressures to be or remain a Muslim, to concur in
criticism of Israel

and yet, a foreign presence or threat is just what solidifies group
identification.

And increased wealth, while it has centrifugal tendencies, also brings
increased power to make trouble.

It would make things simple if we could clearly and obviously point out
that terrorism is utterly antithetical to Islam. Being more Islamic
than the next guy is the one and only 'safe' form of political protest
in most of the Muslim world.

Surely that isn't hard! Religion is about doing good and being nice to
people. Terrorism is the opposite of that. Back during the Iran hostage
crisis, it was noted that the Quran said something about respecting
envoys.

During the anti-Danish demonstrations that raged through the Muslim
world, I looked up information on the life of Muhammad.

On two occasions, he led forces against Jewish communities on the basis
of specious justifications.

On both occasions, he captured the civilian survivors, *including
women*, and sold them into slavery. In each of these cases, he kept one
of the women for himself.

Also, one of his devoted disciples divorced a Coptic Christian woman
that he had obtained through slavery to present her to Muhammad as
well.

There are, very definitely, "good Muslims". The Amahdiyya Muslims, for
example, have tolerance as a basic, intrinsic part of their religion.
Unfortunately, they are not part of mainstream Islam, for much the same
reasons that Mormons and Christian Scientists are not part of
mainstream Christianity.

But with the example of the Prophet, and a glorious past based on
spreading Islam by fire and sword, it would seem that there is too much
risk that terrorism could appeal to unstable minds in that faith
community, and too little hope that we could feel secure, safe, and
confident in the peaceful intentions of the Islamic world after being
menaced by terrorism.

How can we, without openly restricting life for the Islamic world,
instead enhance it, and turn that world into a maze of feel-good New
Age religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism - a vibrant Buddhist
community in Afghanistan would solve the "Disneyland" problem with
respect to an ancient monument there destroyed by the Taliban that it
has been proposed to rebuild, although many Americans would resist what
they would see as spending taxpayer dollars on idols - as well as
moderate Islamic movements and related faiths like Baha'i?

John Savard