Iraqi Christians more afraid than ever

That goes back to the purpose of this thread. I think the answer has to do with which perspective we decide to fight this war from, which was my original question.

If we fight this war as America vs. Terrorism and refuse to give special significance to the targeting of churches, then we continue to do what we're doing -- surgical strikes (most of the time), going a long way to prevent innocent casualties, working toward setting up democracy and a free society.

If we change our perspective and engage in a Christian vs. Muslim war, the enemy changes. The whole philosophy changes. I can think of few things more terrifying than a global religious war, and that's exactly what we'd be in for. What's more, I think it would be enough to break the spine of this country and bring us down for good.

 

Agreed. America vs. terrorism is the only way we have a chance to win. We cannot win a Christians vs. Muslims war for two reasons:

1. America is not that Christian.
2. Terrorists are not that Muslim.

 

You're an American, aren't you?

We don't have to agree on anything to be an "us".

 

The problem I have with the line of reasoning that goes like "Islam is a religion of peace, true muslims do not want to persecute christians or support terror, the terrorist are perverting Islam to gain power" is that it does not seem to be true. You can argue that the teachings of Mohamed were of peace and you can cite scripture and individuals who support your position but the bottom line is that a religion is what its followers make it. It does not matter what Islam is supposed to be. What matters is what it is. There are a large number of muslims out there who believe that the way to live right and please Allah is to kill americans and jews. They do not tolerate other religions or even those who are islamic but do not agree with their tenants. Maybe terminology needs to be invented so that when you refer to the radical militant type muslims you do not include the peace loving kind but there are many of the former. There were many peace loving Japanese and Germans in World War 2. They however were not the ones in charge. You have to wonder which group of muslims is in charge of the middle east.

It is also funny to me how many equate christian fundamentalists with muslim fundamentalist. A christian fundamentalist will tell you that it is a sin to be gay and that you are going to hell if you do not change your ways, then he goes on about his day. A muslim fundamentalist will tell you that Allah will not tolerate you for being gay and then he cuts your head off with a steak knife.

 

Christian fundies will drag you behind a pickup truck, or knock you with a tire iron form the window of a passing vehicle. fundies bomb abortion clinics and threaten employees of clinics with bodily haram and otherwise harrass them. In short there is no difference between muslum zelots and christian ones.

 

I am an American. But Thelt wants all of "us" to turn this into a war of Christianity against Islam. It's not and it won't ever be. And if the so-called Christians allow it to happen, they're just a pathetic as the Muslim Fundies that are killing innocent people around the world.

 

War is war. Your objective is to destroy or incapacitate your enemy by the most efficient method possible. It's just pointless to imagine yourself as "righteous" in that situation, because your enemy is thinking the same thing.

War is two factions of humans killing each other, period. There are the victors, the wounded, and the dead. Who was right or wrong will depend on the mind of who's asking the question.

 

Our problem is that we sit around wringing our hands worrying about offending muslims. We are worried about offending the french, germans and russians. Who is worried about offending us? The muslims, as a general rule, do not care if we all get killed by Bin Laden. I do not care to turn this into a religious war either but if a religion is the driving force behind our enemies then we have little choice.

 

I think that we've gone a long way towards creating an Islamic state in Iraq. For example, in their new constitution it defines Islam as the state religion. This is bound to cause uneasiness in the Iraqi Christian mind. There are a significant number of Iraqi Christians, something like 750,000 of them but they enjoyed a considerable amount of freedom from oppression under Saddam. We need to make sure that this remains the same in our new post-Saddam Iraq. Hussein's Iraq, for all it's faults, was a secular state, the same cannot be said of what is being established there today.

On another note, a global religious war would likely destroy this nation and many others along with it. There are millions of Muslims in this nation alone, so while we are fighting our civil war against the American muslims, the almost 100% Muslim nations around the world would gain an advantage. Not to mention the overwhelming advantage it would give to Communist China if the West was fighting Islam.

 

The Queen of England is the head of the Anglican church - that is working out OK. As long as they protect the freedoms of everyone involved, they can have the official religion be whatever they want.