7 Myths About Islam

So who the hell is Furnish? On the faculty of Georgia Perimeter College? I'm sure the Islamic Studies department there is quite impressive...

For example, he begins to cross the line on the fifth where he makes the point that the Crusaders never started the Crusades. He suggests they are actually just responding to an invasion of the Holy Lands. True. But I'm sure it is hoped that one doesn't remember that this invasion took place several hundred years before. Certainly he isn't going to remind you. Nor the fact that since that time, Christians, Muslims and other religious groups have been living peacefully side by side. Well, as peacefully as one can expect members of the Abrahamic faiths to live. I realize that isn't saying much, but......

Geez, all religions are bogus.

But while it is foolish to deny the links between Islam and violence, it is equally foolish to draw from this the conclusion that Islam causes terrorism. The sort of terrorist outrages we have seen in London and New York are not brought about by excessive reading of the Koran. There are other factors in play as well. In palestine its economic deprivation and oppression of the Palestinians (who are muslims) by the Israelis. In new York it was a reaction against US foreign policy, and in London it was even more specific, revenge for Britain's support in the invasion of Iraq. What I am saying is that religion might give ulitmate justification to the perpetrator of violence (and reward in the hereafter) but it is not itself its root cause. I dont believe for one moment that the muslims are determined to impose sharia law over the whole world, and that we are just seeing a continuation of a clash of religions that started 1400 years ago. What the muslims actually want is just to be left alone in their own countries to run their lives as they want, and in particular they want an end to Western meddling. Again the real reasons for terrorism are much prosaic than religious ideals. We the west have been interferring in the middle east for the last century. We have drawn and re drawn country boundaries, toppled the Ottoman empire, installed shieks and potentates, staged coup d'etats, revolutions, counter revolutions, you name it we've done it....and all because the Muslims are sitting on huge reserves of petroleum...on which we are dependent. That is ultimately whats driving it all and its impossible to understand whats going on in the world today without putting it against that back drop.

D'artagnan wrote:

So who the hell is Furnish? On the faculty of Georgia Perimeter College? I'm sure the Islamic Studies department there is quite impressive...

As opposed to yourself. Faculty within the Ivy League? Brown, Princeton, perhaps. Oh, that's right D'artagnan, web pundit extrodinaire.

I dont think anyone is indulging in a hate fest DD. Not me anyway.

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

I dont think anyone is indulging in a hate fest DD. Not me anyway.

I was referring to Lusatian. He practically froths whenever they're late with his medication.

Should we be worried about the threat from organised terrorism or is it simply a phantom menace being used to stop society from falling apart?

In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares.

The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares.

In a new series, the Power of Nightmares explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion.

It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.

At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists.

Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.

These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.

Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network.

A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.

The rise of the politics of fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that dominates Washington.

Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.

The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision.

They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see.

The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to "see the truth"'.