I am troubled because I see validity in both arguments.

On the one hand I agree with with this blog’s gracious author that Islam has a history of violence and imperialism.

On the other hand I have a hard time condemning all of its adherents to the devil.

I believe that Islam must be reformed, but not solely because of its proclivity to violence. The intertwining of the faith and the faithful’s everday life is simply not a recipe for success.

Plainly, the self appointed religious leaders within Islam have a great rice bowl going now, they will be unwilling to surrender that and will fight down to their last adherent to keep themselves on top. The various Aytollahs and imams and what have you will resist any change that allows the muslims to hold the religion at arm’s length.

I read a theory a while ago that God created satan so man would have a choice. If man has a choice and choses to love God, then that love is an expression of man’s free will. What choice do muslims have? The faith owns them from birth. This is why charges of apostasy are so common now. Walking away from Islam is the last thing the Imams want. having to compete with other visions of life and afterlife is simply not palatable to these men.

That’s the reform: let the muslims actually chose, build a stronger barrier between the religion and the secular aspects of it’s adherent’s lives. this reform doesn’t speak to the history of violence or the call to spread islam via warfare. So Mr Peters has, IMHO a valid point.

On the other hand as the threats and violence ratchet up our desire to be discerning in our efforts to combat the radicals will diminish. Here the nazi analogy is quite apt. By the time the second world war was in full swing we were killing anybody that supported the wehrmacht. Those “civilians” in that ball bearing factory died because they made parts for machines that were being used to kill us. We didn’t make delicate distinctions. We didn’t have special nazi only ordinance. Sure we tried to avoid churches and such, but we dropped bombs night and day on every square inch of enemy territory we could reach.

this is the big risk that the muslims take now. It is quite clear to me that they have confused restraint with weakness. They are essentially gambling that our self imposed restrictions will cause us to lose a war.

We might lose some preliminary battles, or struggle to win ground now because our RoE’s are too PC. but another attack on the scale of 9/11 and the howls of rage and calls for blood will be deafening. We won’t care if the people in the target area are radicals, moderates, shia, sunni, alawhi or whatever, we will kill until the threat is eliminated.

The muslims themselves must decide now. If they cannot overcome the radicals in time to prevent a seminal event, they will die. Just as the lebanese immediately recognized that they were victims of their own inaction when hezbullah started a war with Israel, the muslims may understand too late that the failure to act now, out of fear or tacit approval or whatever, will condemn many to needless death later.

Migkiller…hey are you the same Migkiller from flight sim group?

If so welcome to my new hobby.

To all of them “Hudaibiya” is a well-understood code-word which, in brief, means “Kiss the hand of your enemy until you can cut it off.” That is what Muhammed did to the Jews of the Quraish Tribe (alternate spelling: Koreish or Quraiza) who lived in Mecca.
Ahmedinajad and Nasrallah are now ready to play the “Hudaibiya” card by accepting the UNIFIL 2 offer thereby staving off disaster for their cronies until they are militarily strong enough to mount another assault.
In the seventh century, Muhammed, supposedly received the word of G-d that he was G-d’s last and only prophet. He initiated the third monotheistic religion, Islam (which means “submission”). He zealously propagated Islam to the desert tribes in the Arabian peninsula. To win over the Jews, he adopted many Jewish customs. But, the Jews in Mecca refused to accept any changes in Judaism. The Muslims and Muhammed negotiated with them to pray at the Ka’aba Stone, a black monolith in Mecca. Because they were only 1400 men, they offered a peace treaty, the “Hudaibiya Treaty”, suspending war for 10 years. Three years later, when Mohammed was stronger with a 10,000 man army, he set out to liberate Mecca and exterminated the Jewish tribe (1), selling the women they didn’t kidnap into slavery. Because the Jews rejected Muhammed’s Islam, there are many hostile denunciations of Jews in the Koran and bitter attacks upon the Jewish tradition, which have affected the beliefs of religious Muslims today. (2)
Muhammed established forever the right and even obligation of every Muslim to make agreements with non-Muslims when necessary (but only for 10 years as in the “Hudaibiya Treaty”) and then break these agreements when stronger so Islam could advance. Neither honor, nor ethics, nor obligations are allowed to stand in the way of establishing domination of Islam across the entire planet.