Re: We are winning the war... aren't we???

> Peter,

Actually me, but ok. ;P

> You know damned well I'm not saying that we should delcare war on the
> entire religion.

I didn't say otherwise.  You mentioned this mythical religion (your
description) called Radical Islam.

> Find the radicals,

And there, Bill, is the biggest flaw in your largely sound logic.  How the
hell do you find them?  How do you target only the radical element of any
group when it hides itself so well behind the religion (which is why I
don't like your use of the term religion for Radical Islam).

> Fact:  certain parts of the Islamic faith have delcared war
> on us.  Either the other parts disavow them, or they risk being caught
> in the crossfire.

No, not an acceptable approach.  This is how you fuel the radical element.
 "If you're not with us you're against us and don't deserve to live" is as
bad as "If you're not Muslim you're against us and you don't deserve to
live".

If I'm not trying to kill you then I'm not at war with you, it doesn't
matter whether I stand up and say I hate those who do want to kill you or
not.

In a situation where two groups are at odds and one says "you stand by me
or you're as bad as them" and another says "you stay out of my way and I
don't care whether you stand by me or not", it's human nature to rebel
against the former instruction.  But if the first group said "you know, we
can't do anything about the second group without your help and they're
making your lives AND ours worse" then human nature would cause a
rebellion against the second group.

> To date, I see VERY FEW mulsims stepping forward to condemn the
> radicals.

Is this, just possibly, because you're not looking?  Only yesterday I
spent much of the day watching interviews with muslims from the same
mosques as the arrested men and they were certainly unanimously condemning
radicals.  They were, to be fair, also pointing out that these people are
innocent until proven guilty, but I'd hope (perhaps in vain) that everyone
was remembering that.

P