In the Arab News:

“There are individuals in the Muslim world who pose as clerics and issue death sentences against those they disagree with,” says Shakir Al-Nablusi, a Jordanian academic and one of the signatories. “These individuals give Islam a bad name and foster hatred among civilizations.”

Nablusi said hundreds of Arab writers and academics were collecting more signatures and hope to have “tens of thousands” by next month. Among those collecting signatures are Jawad Hashem, a former Iraqi minister of planning, and Alafif Al-Akdhar, a leading Tunisian writer and academic. Most of the signatories are from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states plus Iraq, Jordan and Palestine.

The signatories describe those who use religion for inciting violence as “the sheikhs of death”. Among those mentioned by name is Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian preacher working in Qatar. The signatories accuse him of “providing a religious cover for terrorism.”

I wish them the best--people like this are the only hope for Islam--but I suspect we'll be hearing some new fatwas shortly.

I wish this guy well, but I don't think Islam is equipped to deal wiht the modern world. I hope I'm wrong.

Tim McNabb
fivehundredwords.com

A little good-natured poke at John Kerry
Swift Goose Veterans for Truth

With all due respect, neither is Christianity equipped, by and large. Got to love the way that Bush and Kerry espouses religions.

Check out most of the proclamations of most of the Pope(s).

I think maybe it's beginning to sink in to the Arab & Islamic world what a fine line they are treading. The historic response to continued cross-society terrorism has been to destroy the societies in which the terrorists move; i.e., genocide. This is what the US did with autochthonous cultures, for example. Genocide's been very much out of fashion in the west for the last 75 years or so (and a good thing, that), but with continued conflict the safeties will be coming off.

I lived for a few years in Jordan. Muslims there are no more or no less fanatic than Christians in the U.S. They seemed quite capable of recognizing a scam.

In fact, I never noticed much of a difference in political opinion between the Muslim majority and the (admittedly tiny) Christain minority. E.g., Christian Palestinians of my acquitance held views on Israel that did not differ from those of Muslim Palestinians.

However, Americans need to understand that groups like Hamas are not seen as terrorists. They are seen as legitiate political forces. I don't agree with that, of course, but do think it is futile trying to play that card in MidEast politics. The first step toward changing reality is recognizing it.

Three cheers for enloop!!!! I agree, having traveled worldwide some and having met people from various religious groups, we are all pretty much the same. The average person in other countries has the same ideas at 6:45 every morning we have here in the U.S. Get the kids up, get papa off to work, get food cooking for three meals, papa brings home the bacon, or lamb if they don't eat pork etc. The kids learn what they need to know culturally to get by. Only the level of knowledge or actual lessons, and needs change.

The people out there blowing up cars and and flying airplanes into buildings are FANATICS. They claim religious "rights" to do the things they do. And yet the majority from that religion, don't do the things they do. Some people have said Islamic countries breed more fanatics than anywhere else, well right now that may be true. But for 75 years it was Russian Communist Fanatics we fought. It was an ANT-RELIGION fanaticism we fought. The foe and his message have changes but not his mission.

The mission is, as always, bring "them", our enemy, to our way of thinking or destroy them. And in the middle of that time we had the Russian Communists as an ally to fight FASCIST FANATICS. Fanaticism is ever with us. Only the cause or creed changes. For that matter Communism may have declined, but China is STILL Communist and don't forget the North Koreans or Castro's Cuba. One movement declines, another rises up.

I am not defnding the current, or past, crowds of fanatics. I am simply pointing out that they are always out there. And always will be, they are made up of unhappy, fearful, miserable people looking to make some one else hurt because they do. They see their misery as someone elses fault and lash out at whomever they are told is at fault. Fanatical leaders, however, all have one thing in common. A search for power, they subvert their message to fit the current crisis, to rally people to them. That too will most likely never change.

Lest we forget, what about our own homegrown fanatics, like Jim Jones and David Koresh, we grow them too. Cinque of the Simbianese Libeartion Army, The Weather Underground, hell for that matter John Kerry and his VVAW, shall I go on.

I grew up in Kentucky, in the city mind you. But I grew up hearing about snake handling Christian Churches in the Appalachian Mountains near Tennessee and West Virginia. Too me that's fanaticism, to them it's "what God decrees", sounds all too familiar. But we accept it, somewhat, because it's close to the religions we accept as "normal". Jehovah Witnesses will not take most modern medicines because of their religious beliefs. How many times do we read about them being in court because they refuse medical treatment for their children because of that belief. And sometimes the children die. To me its not normal. To them it's not. But its an American abhoration so its "normal", and we acept it, somewhat.

Is that "normal", any different than an acceptance of Hamas, or the PLO, as "normal", I think not. Its dangerous in my opinion, but not any of it is normal, TO ME.

I'm sorry, but until snakehandlers start blowing up buses, I will never see a moral equivalence between them and Hamas.

There is a difference in kind as well as degree between benign aberrations -- which our First Amendment requires us to tolerate -- and malignant ones.

Sheesh.

I think a certain amount of credit is due W here, too. The fact is, he has said that accomodation to Crusading Islam is not an acceptable option for the most powerful and advanced country on Earth. By doing that he gives hope to the moderates. People who would otherwise hunker down and wait and see whether the crazy snake-handling imams carry the day are encouraged to speak up, to imagine a future where the ordinary concerns of ordinary folks are dominant in their religion.

Remember 25 years ago, when the debate was whether it was better to pragmatically support anti-Communists tyrants in the Third World, or to support their domestic democratic opposition? Whether Kissinger Realpolitik was better than standing up for what you believed in, whether or not it was convenient?

That's where we are now with respect to Islam. Suppose we tell the moderates in the Islamic world: Gee, these extremists, what can be done? We (the most powerful country in the world) can't see anything else to do but just live with them, accomodate them, worry ourselves about what they demand, look for the root causes of their insanity, treat them like statesmen representing real people. . .

What will the moderates think? Will they be encouraged to put their own lives, families, and fortunes on the line to oppose the fanatics? Or will they decide to hunker down, wear a "Death to the Great Satan" button as camouflage, tell anyone who asks "oh I'm nonpolitical. . ." ? To ask the question is to see the answer.

On the other hand, imagine how they might react if they realize America is not kidding, that it's our determination -- backed up by a quarter of the world's wealth and capability -- that the way of the crazy imams will always lead straight to obscurity, poverty or the grave. That the United States sets its face implacably against such childishness, does not even see its playground "leaders" as grown-up politicians with which to negotiate.

On second thought, you don't need to imagine it. Just talk to someone in Eastern Europe and ask them how it felt when the United States finally firmly set its face against Communism and denied its leaders were anything other than charlatans peddling the most insidious of narcotics.

McGhee I did indeed leave something out. Thanks for the heads up.

The hyper religious and hyper political in America have in fact committed acts of terror. Thought most everyone would see where I was pointing.

Arrafat, Bin Laden nor any other group from outside the country has blown up an abortion clinic. Or an Olympic event. Or ROTC Building. Or Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The last one may even be overlapping homegrown and Islamofascists.

We've had right wing "militia" goons kill and rob banks to finance their twisted view of "taking back" America. Most of them seem to be aligned with fundemantalist Christians. The white supremacists quote scripture to push their views of racial purity.

These groups are all convinced that TV, radio, movies and almost every other form of communication/commerce made in America is aimed at the dissolution of their way of life.
(look at the web sites)

"The Jews run the world and want us all to spend money so they can get richer. They want to mongrelize the races." Its the same rhetoric Bin Laden and the rest of his kind use. Its how Hitler convinced the Germans to take away the rights of the Jews.

I am a Christian, gun owning, ex-liberal now conservative voter so it seems a little weird to me to be THAT far out in any beliefs. My studying and internet news searches have yet to find someone from the middle of the road in religious or political beliefs killing and destroying in the name their God or political bent.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Bin Laden, Arrafat, Saddam, Jones, Koresh etc all killed for their "cause". While at the same, time living lives their followers are kept from achieving. They then blame ME, because I'm an American who still believes our country is basically good, warts and all.

Which stirs up the masses. The rabble rousers are all using the old same worn out lines to get followers. And the groups blame each other, and ME, and you, for the problems in their twisted little worlds. And it goes on, and on, and on, and around, and around.....

I wasn't pointing out moral equivalence or benign aberrations. I was attempting to point out that religious or political fanatacism is NOT confined geographically to the Middle East, Europe or Asia.

I was attempting to point out that religious or political fanatacism starts small and grows like cancer once started and not checked.

I was attempting to point out that religious or political fanatacism comes in many shapes and sizes, and will always be with us.

I just didn't do a very good job of making my point.