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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
(b) Not to disagree with you, but.... Oh, hell, I disagree completely. Hatred -- killing hatred -- doesn't spring up overnight, or from nowhere. Especially a hatred purportedly based on faith and religious teachings. It is learned over years. Here, it is learned from leaders, especially religious leaders or those who coopt religion, who express and applaud hatred and violence in sermons and conversations and posters and the like.

Tolerance, too, is learned over years. But the carrier of that message must have the same credibility, the same inside influence, that the people promoting hatred have. Otherwise, it's a message from outsiders that is ignored.

Whatever condemnation we've heard has been tepid to say the least. Muslim leaders need to condemn Muslims who attack civilians. Full stop. They need to stop suggesting that it's bad, but okay if the other side does it, or let's look at Israeli "terrorism", or the like.

What I am asking them to do is the same thing that you ask American leaders to do over, say, Abu Ghraib or Gitmo -- say that it is wrong, say that it is not our values, say that those who did it or directed it should be punished. And not say "all torture of prisoners is bad, whether its done by Americans or Iraqis or Israelis or Russians." Because the former means that you are taking a stand against your own people and government, and you are trying to be a voice that influences others of your own people. And the latter is just saying "a pox on both their houses" and is ultimately meaningless.

If they cannot take a strong stand now, publicly, then it is absolutely certain that they are not taking that stand when it really counts -- in the mosques and writings and schools and private discussions that really influence people's lives. Muslim children need to grow up thinking "my Imam says Hezbollah is wrong because they intentionally kill civilians," not "my Imam thinks that both Israel and Hezbollah use bad tactics, but at least Hezbollah is fighting for the right cause."

OK. I'm just tired of the games I described on these boards. As debate, their tired. I would rather pay attention to what people say or do than look to some purported inconsistency with what they say or do and some other action or position. As you suggest, the important thing is what they say in the mosques and schools, etc.

(c) The CAIR statement is a prime example. They give a general "condemnation" of "terrorist" by all -- states, not-states, individuals, blah blah blah. In other words, they are equating Israel's conduct with Hezbollah's. And they are not singling out people of their own faith and their own ethnicity and their own community and saying "this is wrong -- these people are wrong."

I think we ought to take their words at face value. They condemn all terrorism. That surely includes blowing up passenger jets.

(d) Maybe, maybe not. But we did hear what they did say. And I suspect that if Muslim religious leaders were regularly speaking out against Hezbollah and Hamas, we would hear that too.

Notwithstanding your efforts to manufacture disagreement on my part, I basically agree with sebby's point that Muslims would rather criticize Israel's actions than Islamist terrorism or other atrocities committed by Muslims -- Darfur, anyone?