Much has been made of the failings of the coalition of the willing, especially America.

Let look at it from another side. What are we fighting against? What is  radical Islam? What does Islam really teach? Why are they fighting each other? How do we stop it?

Do you think we should not interfere in countries where religious extremism exist.

So leave your racism in the closet and share your views.

Radical Islam is a very complex problem that requires multi layered solutions to solve it. Invading Arab countries where there are no terrorists, interfering in other countries affairs, forming terrorist organisations when it suits you and then abandoning them when it doesn't, killing many innocents to get one terrorist are all ways not to go about it.

It is a scourge on the earth and must be eradicated, but the way it is being done now is actually empowering it. People who were once not enemies now are, people who were once empowered and were protesting against the fundamentalists and extremists are now disempowered and being persecuted by them.

There are no simple solutions and I don't have all the answers but I do know what especially the US is now doing is not and will not work, and as even its own intelligence studies are finding the current tactics are actually increasing terrorism and giving it a cause.

Always condemn it in the loudest voice, always deprive it of recruits, always empower the majority moderates and always help the destitute and poor who are the source for recruiting. These are just some of the positives that can be done. Never interfere in the sovereignty of another country unless they are attacking you (which is why invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do). Don't be hypocritical in telling other countries they can't do things whilst you do them yourself, that also empowers the radicals and gives them ammo for recruitment. Don't steal a country's oil and only attack those countries that have it, but allow dictators in countries that don't have oil do anything they like. You have to set the right example to disempower the recruitment drive. The current hypocrisy is just having hordes of potential recruits seeking out the fundamentalists, they don't even have to actively seek them anymore.

This problem won't be solved overnight, but sure as day the current tactics will just extend the power and reign of the fundamentalists.

Is enough being done by muslims themselves or do you believe is it tolerated.

So much to answer in that one simple question. It's most likely a combination of many things. There are whole swaths of moderate Muslims, a great majority by all accounts, who are actually fighting the fundamentalists (politically, socially and militarily which is one of the reasons why there is so much infighting).

But what America's interference, but more so its hypocrisy, is doing is allowing the radicals to say, especially to the young moderates, "why do you fight us when look at America and what it does to your fellow Arabs." "Look at how it openly supports and arms Israel so it can fight against your Arab brothers." "Look at what it has done to Iraq which had no terrorists" etc.

America should be spending far more effort on winning the trust of the moderates and if that means giving up the oil of Iraq and starts helping Palestinians and other impoverished Arabs, then so be it. They could also fight the corruption of many of the Arab leaders so more wealth goes down to the poor, especially to the unemployed youth who are the radicals greatest source of recruitment.

I'll look up some sources on this, including many US government papers (State department and CIA) that state it in more detail than I can. There are many big books out there on it as well. What the Bush administration (and by rote Howard) is doing wrong is trying to paint this whole terrorism thing in black and white, enemy and good guys, one group against another bad group. But radical Islam is not like that at all, that whole outlook is way to simplistic and fighting it in those terms is absolutely doomed to fail. Again there are lots of good books and articles on this.

Quoted from boomslanger

There are no simple solutions and I don't have all the answers but I do know what especially the US is now doing is not and will not work, and as even its own intelligence studies are finding the current tactics are actually increasing terrorism and giving it a cause.

But surely we have to do something?

If there is a better way then lets use it. It has always been my argument. If we are going to pull out troops what plan are we going to use? I am willing to accept a certain level of criticism but it would be irresponsible for people to say that we are doing the wrong thing when you dont know the right thing to do is. I dont know, maybe force is the wrong thing to use but until someone comes along with a better plan that has a chance of working  I am going to back our troops to do the job.

I just dont know how we go about talking peace with a group like Al Qaida.

Quoted from boomslanger

America should be spending far more effort on winning the trust of the moderates and if that means giving up the oil of Iraq and starts helping Palestinians and other impoverished Arabs, then so be it. They could also fight the corruption of many of the Arab leaders so more wealth goes down to the poor, especially to the unemployed youth who are the radicals greatest source of recruitment.

I agree that more should be done to help them. But I wonder if some Muslim countries actually are fair dinkum about helping each other. There is plenty of money floating around the middle east just look at the U.A.E. Sometimes I think some countries are happy to put their head in the sand and say if it doesnt effect me then why get involved,it looks too messy and hard. Maybe the reason I feel like I do is because if they arent willing to clean up there backyard then someone has to.

Maybe a certain level of respect for our cultures and beliefs would make people more willing to engage them and help them. It just feels like the western way of life somehow offends their sensibilities. Especially the Jewish one. Maybe it is them that need to overcome indifference and do more to be at peace with us.

Quoted from The_Pragmatic_One

But surely we have to do something?

If there is a better way then lets use it. It has always been my argument. If we are going to pull out troops what plan are we going to use? I am willing to accept a certain level of criticism but it would be irresponsible for people to say that we are doing the wrong thing when you dont know the right thing to do is. I dont know, maybe force is the wrong thing to use but until someone comes along with a better plan that has a chance of working  I am going to back our troops to do the job.

I just dont know how we go about talking peace with a group like Al Qaida.

But you are framing this in exactly the wrong way. You seek a simple one off solution and because force seems to offer this you believe its the only way. There are whole plans of alternatives made by dozens of the world's best experts on all matters relating to this, but completely rejected by the hawks.

So you believe after having stuffed up so badly in using the military option and actually making things worse, which America has now admitted to, we should just continue more of the same.

No you don't make peace with Al Qaida, but again you make the same mistake and try to paint that organisation as one homogeneous close knit structured group you can fight by might. Al Qaida as a military group with Osama and deputies hasn't existed since September 11. In fact Al Qaida is no more a single terrorist organisation than a termite mound in the NT is connected to a termite mound in WA. A Brit wrote a good piece on how Al Qaida has now become this self perpetuating amoebous entity and the London bombers no more acted on orders from any Al Qaida operative than the Bali bombers did. America by its hypocrisy and actions in interfering in other countries affairs for its own economic and political gain is giving cause and fuel for spontaneous terrorist cells to arise who say they are Al Qaida but are that in name only.

You fight this type of terrorism with social constructs and diplomacy whilst setting an example yourself. You don't arbitrarily invade countries, support dictators when it suits, form your own terrorist organisations or support them when it suits, steal oil, impose your rule on others whilst breaking those rules yourself. You don't use entities like Blackwater, which is saying we are a democracy but can be as bad if not worse than those we condemn.

That is too simplistic yet again but you are trying to frame a very complex thing in simplistic terms, and that's how you want to fight it. Because it is not that simple the current way it is being fought will always fail.

Quoted from boomslanger

Always condemn it in the loudest voice, always deprive it of recruits, always empower the majority moderates and always help the destitute and poor who are the source for recruiting. These are just some of the positives that can be done. Never interfere in the sovereignty of another country unless they are attacking you (which is why invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do). Don't be hypocritical in telling other countries they can't do things whilst you do them yourself, that also empowers the radicals and gives them ammo for recruitment. Don't steal a country's oil and only attack those countries that have it, but allow dictators in countries that don't have oil do anything they like. You have to set the right example to disempower the recruitment drive. The current hypocrisy is just having hordes of potential recruits seeking out the fundamentalists, they don't even have to actively seek them anymore.

Much of this boils down to the difference between right and wrong. And it appears Bush, Blair & Howard (as the figureheads of their organisations) do not know the difference. Their parents and their school teachers should be ashamed. Let's send them back to primary school.

Radical Islam and religious extremism must be stopped (and I include Hillsong as religious extremists).

TPO, the driving force behind all the strategies you are seeing are oil, money, and power. When you eliminate these as the driver and replace them with something positive you may see a different result.

Quoted from x452

  . . . . Radical Islam and religious extremism must be stopped (and I include Hillsong as religious extremists)..

You are right of course . . but who and how?  

Quoted from x452

. . .  the driving force behind all the strategies you are seeing are oil, money, and power. When you eliminate these as the driver and replace them with something positive you may see a different result.

Money, power and oil . .go on . .tell us what and how these will be replaced with something more positive??? . . (can't wait for the answer to this one).  

Quoted from blahNii

You are right of course . . but who and how?  

Read Boomslanger's posts above, I don't need to reiterate.

Quoted from blahNii

Money, power and oil . .go on . .tell us what and how these will be replaced with something more positive??? . . (can't wait for the answer to this one).  

Such negativity blahNii? Come back to the centre  

I've said it before. To achieve a resemblance of stability in Iraq requires a multi-lateral effort by the west and Iraq's immediate neighbours as well as other key players in the M.E. And guess what? America has been talking to Iran and Syria for some time now. The true goal needs to be stability, peace and democracy for Iraq. These are positive reasons. Not money, power and oil disguised as stability, peace and democracy.

Absolutely right. What the US is doing now is not seeking real democracy but is actually robbing the Iraqis. Not only the Iraqis but all the surrounding Arabs see this hypocrisy and radical Islam flourishes because of it.

Here are some very telling figures to go along with the latest poll which shows only 18% of Iraqis now support the US occupation:

Quoted Text

Estimated number of Iraqi insurgents in November 2003 -- 5,000; October 2006 -- 20,000-30,000.

Quoted Text

"Since the conflict began, 2 million Iraqis have fled the country, and 1.8 million more have been displaced within its borders, according to figures compiled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Every month 50,000 more Iraqis leave for foreign lands in what has become the biggest exodus in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new country of Israel in 1948 to become stateless refugees."

...and this is also interesting and shows the propaganda the US engages in:

Quoted Text

Amount the Pentagon paid per article to Iraqi newspapers for running “favourable reports” on the progress of the war -- up to $US2,000.

Quoted from The_Pragmatic_One

Much has been made of the failings of the coalition of the willing, especially America.

Let look at it from another side. What are we fighting against? What is  radical Islam? What does Islam really teach? Why are they fighting each other? How do we stop it?

Do you think we should not interfere in countries where religious extremism exist.

So leave your racism in the closet and share your views.

It's not about racism it's about brainwashing and people ignorance about Geostrategy:

    * The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives

      by Zbigniew Brzezinski. It Is "A Blueprint for World Dictatorship," Says Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl a Former German Defense and NATO Official;


Excerpt from the book

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor." (pp 24-5)

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)

"...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)

"Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power." (p.55)

I don't know where to put this article.. maybe it's in the wrong place here.. But anyway.. I kind of agree with the French.. mainly.. definitely in banning anything religious in public schools..



PARIS — It is a measure of France’s confusion about Islam and its own Muslim citizens that in the political furor here over “banning the burqa,” as the argument goes, the garment at issue is not really the burqa at all, but the niqab.

A burqa is the all-enveloping cloak, often blue, with a woven grill over the eyes, that many Afghan women wear, and it is almost never seen in France. The niqab, often black, leaves the eyes uncovered.

Still, a movement against it that started with a Communist mayor near Lyon has gotten traction within France’s ruling center-right party, which claims to be defending French values, and among many on the left, who say they are defending women’s rights. A parliamentary commission will soon meet to investigate whether to ban the burqa — in other words, any cloak that covers most of the face.

The debate is indicative of the deep ambivalence about social customs among even a small minority of France’s Muslim citizens, and of the signal fear that France’s principles of citizens’ rights, equality and secularism are being undermined.

French discomfort with organized religion, dating from the 1789 revolution and the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church, is aggravated by these foreign customs, which are associated in the Western mind with repression of women.

André Gerin, a Communist Party legislator and mayor of Vénissieux, a Lyon suburb with many Muslims from North Africa, began the affair in late June by initiating a motion, signed by 57 other legislators, calling for the parliamentary commission.

“The burqa is the tip of the iceberg,” Mr. Gerin said. “Islamism really threatens us.” In a letter to the government, he wrote: “It is time to take a stand on this issue that concerns thousands of citizens who are worried to see imprisoned, totally veiled women.”

A few days later, President Nicolas Sarkozy said that “the burqa is not welcome on the territory of the French Republic.” He did not say how it would be made unwelcome, however, or whether he intended to extend existing laws that already ban head scarves or any other religious symbol from public schools.

For Mr. Sarkozy, who defends participation in the Afghan war as a matter of women’s rights, “the problem of the burqa is not a religious problem,” he said. “It is a problem of liberty and the dignity of women. It is a sign of servitude and degradation.”

There is a strong suspicion that Mr. Sarkozy, who has supported religious freedom, is playing politics in a time of economic unhappiness and social anxiety. But he also seems to want to restrict more radical and puritanical forms of Islam from gaining further hold here.

The French press has been full of heated opinion pieces, charts about different Islamic veils, stories about public swimming pools and the burqini, an Islamic swimsuit that covers the body and the hair (but not the face). Women wearing the niqab, many of them French converts to Islam, have said that they have freely chosen to cover themselves after marriage. Others say solemnly that to stigmatize or ban the veil would only cause more women to wear it, out of protest.

Last year, Faiza Silmi, now 33, was denied French citizenship in part for wearing the niqab, bringing a legal judgment about personal dress into the home. In an interview with Le Monde, Ms. Silmi said that she chose to wear the niqab after her marriage, even if her own mother thought it was “a little too much.”

“Don’t believe for a moment that I am submissive to my husband!” she said. “I’m the one who takes care of the documents and the money.”

Passions have been so high that when domestic intelligence issued a report saying that only 367 women in France wore a full veil, it seemed to make no difference.

For many French Muslims, the entire discussion is an embarrassment and an incitement to racial and religious hatred.

M’hammed Henniche is the secretary for the private Union of Muslim Associations of Seine-Saint-Denis. He is French first of all, he said, and he is appalled.

“There’s nothing but confusion,” he said. “What they’re talking about is the niqab, but I think choosing to use burqa instead is not an accident. They chose a word that is associated with Afghanistan, and that spreads a negative, scary image.

“There are laws in France that force women to show their face, in certain situations, at the town hall, at the bank,” Mr. Henniche added. “Women who wear niqab take it off when they must. But in the streets, everyone is free. They’re spinning this story in order to stigmatize a community.”

Even existing laws are misunderstood, he said, with a woman refused entry to a bank because employees thought a head scarf was illegal. “It’s a dangerous slip, going from a ban in school to a ban in the streets,” he said.

John R. Bowen, who wrote “Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space,” has been asked to testify by the parliamentary commission.

“French political discourse is internally conflicted,” said Mr. Bowen, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. There is confusion about different kinds of public space, he said — the street, and places that belong to the state but are not freely open to the public, like schools.

France took from Rousseau the principle that no intermediate group or affiliation should stand between the citizen and the state, which represents the general interest, Mr. Bowen said. But Rousseau also championed the right to form private associations, or clubs. It was not until 1901, however, that the state allowed some unions or associations, Mr. Bowen said, and not until 1981 that foreigners could form them.

Muslim groups then started religious tutoring, seen as promoting Islam, and clubs based on ethnicity or religion are viewed with great suspicion, Mr. Bowen said. “There is a sense that people who are publicly displaying their religious or ethnic characteristics are a slap in the face of French applied political theory.”

Mr. Bowen does not think there will be a law banning the niqab. Nor does Yazid Sabeg, Mr. Sarkozy’s commissioner for diversity and equal opportunity, who said it would be unenforceable.

“Even if they ban the burqa, it will not stop there,” Mr. Henniche, of the Muslim group, said. “There is a permanent demand for legislating against Muslims. This could go really bad, and I’m scared of it. I feel like they’re turning the screws on us.”

Nadim Audi contributed reporting from Paris.

Thats an interesting story Dara..and I'm not sure where I stand..certainly I think any religious paraphernalia  should not be on display in public schools...but after that ..I don't know I am also against legislation that interferes  with personal rights/choice.

Exactly Candy   I think the debate comes from, for how many woman is it their choice, or would it be if.. they had been raised educated on free choice as well..

I think schools should be used for learning not the opposite (i.e. religious mumbo-jumbo)