I have the conch!

Thank you HapKiDo for the opportunity to step in and blah blah blah for a few days. All of you avid readers out there are probably unsure about what I'm going to put before you but I think it might be OK.


So this weekend I was with a bunch of friends and family and I had to bring up the absence of peace activists among Muslims. Now, Iowa City is probably not the best place to bring up such a subject, especially during a war but I just had to get some input from these folks to see if I was really out of touch with reality. So I admit that I'm concerned about how little I'm hearing from the Muslims and the Islam faith condemning those "radicals" who seek the destruction of America and all its citizens. Please refer to my earlier post on my blog for additional reading on the matter.



Well after this subject comes up there is a lot of back and forth debating and people every so often concede one point or another. During all this it comes up that the war in Iraq is President Bush's little crusade - his religious war. Now, I've heard a lot of things about this war but I hadn't heard this one. First it was about Sadam supporting terrorism, then WMD, oil and now religion? Why can't it just be about removing one regime for a people who did not have it in their power to remove it themselves? Of course, that begs the question, how do they measure up to the American colonists in their desire for new leadership. But that's another post.


Now something that I walked away thinking about that I hadn't considered before or even in commented on in my previously referred to post was this: why do American news reports seem so empty the American Muslims here in this country standing up and protesting against the terrorists in the middle east? I don't know what the U.S. military Muslim recruitment numbers are but are Muslims in America signing up for military service to do their part to protect America from becoming what the middle east is now? If Islam is a religion of peace, then why is it that the general media isn't portraying that fact? This may be a dumb thing to say but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and looks like a duck, it probably is a duck. If it doesn't look peaceful, it doesn't sound peaceful or it doesn't openly promote peace, then it probably isn't peaceful.


Now I don't question American Muslims to incite a McCarthyism fear. I simply ask for clarification on what Islam in America is. I understand that there are various branches, sects, or whatever they are called in Islam just as there are divisions based on various degrees of interpretation, adherence, and practices in any other religion. But if Belgian Lutherans were all of a sudden going about chanting, "Destroy Canada" and "Death to Canadians" and burning in effigy large maple leafs, all in the name of their religious faith then wouldn't Canadian Lutherans be sort of obligated to voice their disagreement to such protests and defend Lutheranism? Or is that wrong of me to think that they should?


So there are some things I was thinking of this weekend. I would like to know what you think. Please feel free to post a comment. Please stop by my blog http://idlike2bntx.blogspot.com.