London

No, Bruce, I don�t belong to any �organised� religion, political party or other such band. I was raised in all faiths for my role with a 2.2 million strong "community" spread across Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. We have Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Christian followers.

 

I had to read Gita, the Torah and cover the Bible with an American Missionary before reading an English translation of the Quran. A Sikh gayani was at court to teach me gurmukhi so that I could follow the Garanth Saheb. I have lead mass (Psalm 143) at a Cathedral, prayed at Hindu temples and eaten Parshad with my Sikhs at their gurdawaras.

 

Your Iran point makes sense.

We all know how areas of Brit influence were gradually taken over by the US and, ironically, with all those sour liabilities of the Brit Colonial Rule. US took over a business from her English speaking cousins with millions of irritated customers!

 

I hope you will appreciate that the realities of Life are dictated by peoples' perceptions. Say, even in our ordinary day-to-day life, two neighbours can come to see and take very different stand on some absolutely simple point. What do we do here?

Shoot the both?

Or, just the one the lobbyists convince us to be in the wrong?

 

People in this area remember just what they have actually seen.

They saw the Shah entering Teheran on top of an American tank and, then a Colonel Roosevelt took to direct him and his regime from an anteroom in his palace - for a good 21 years.

 

In the 50s Iran was about the Koolest place in town.

Teheran was known Mid East�s Paris. Even the Bombay film industry people would spend their long weekends there. Not in the swinging suburbs of their own city. If you look at this situation with an open mind, you would find that Khomeni would have been a total nobody, but for blatant American support for an oppressive Pehelvi regime.

 

A bit like Washington is now suppressing a global probe into Karimov�s Uzbek killings. No, not really for her own interests?

 

My friend, peoples' attitudes are formed by their perceptions and what the experience. Not by the State Department's desires or just merely by someone's sermons.

 

Today�s global situation would be different if the US only ever followed the just path. We both know that corporate oligarchy has a big hand in running the US and it often does smell a bit of oil.

 

OBL wouldn�t have been hosted by any country in the world had it not been for the sheer presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. Saudi is the single most sensitive point for our world�s 1,473,000,000 Muslims.

 

We are almost friends now, lets agree that even people who handle stolen goods at the street level, always make sure they hold some documentation to make that camcorder in their glove compartment just a bit kosher!!

 

We know the US had obtained a document from the House of Saud.

This could be a good situation for the Americans. But for the rest of the world the Sauds had come to be seen as crooked as their backers. OBL would have been just a Riyadh builder only if he was not boosted by US deeds + the Americans inability to consider or, mostly, even to understand people in the street.

 

The saddest fact is that if the Americans had used their affable smile and just learnt to cultivate with legitimate people in other countries, they would have been the most loved characters in the whole world. This would have cost your country less than 2.5% of what your wars have cost you.

Plus, imagine, no body bags, no civilians deads.

Yes, they literally believe in death...it is like an article of faith...it is very, very preverse and frightening for the rest of us that respect life, honor life, want to protect life..the question is how can we upend the hijacking of Islam that they are attempting..?

Very simple, be just and stop killing people or occupying their lands. That's the only way out.

herjihad wrote: Bismillah, Whisper and B, You might not realize that my definition of terrorist includes anyone dropping bombs on innocent people.  It is against my religion to kill non-combatants.  I would like "collateral damage" to be against the law in my country. B, we can pray for Allah, SWT, to punish all transgressors for he is in charge.  I advocate praying to Allah, SWT, against them all as well, but I brought up the Al-Qaeda group because they had the nerve to ask for our prayers when we hate them for killing so many innocents and frightening them with their evil ways. But now that I think about it, I remember something GWB said about God being behind him and his decisions.  Yeah, that deserves prayers against his evil bomb dropping, country invading ways also. I personally would like to see the destruction of all weapons of mass destruction, which includes bombs from planes et cetera.  I was very sad when the dismantling of nuclear warheads stopped because the Soviet Union fell apart and the powers that be in America had no incentive to destroy them anymore. If we all agreed that we need to stop mass killings, then we could enter a world treaty, and have much more peace.

Thanks for your thoughts Herjihad.

Do you believe that police need to use force sometimes against evil persons intent on doing evil to innocent persons?  If you do, then the same could be said of say, Saddam Hussein, Mullah Omar or Osama Bin Laden - could it not...how do you plan to stop these people without force or the threat of force?  Could anyone have stopped Hitler or Pol Pot (for that matter) without force?

May the great God bless you and your family..peace be upon you..

Bismillah,

It is 100 degrees with no air conditioner.  To continue...

We need to start preventing crime with the crime that is preventable (people who would behave nicely if they really knew how and were not led into crime).  Food, education, recreation for poor kids all over the world, and a meaningful existence for all of us (caring for others through giving, volunteering et cetera).  This topic could take PAGES!

Most American kids have violence bred into us by our culture and surroundings.  We are also taught that girls and boys are a different breed from each other, and we are raised this way.  I consider both of these faulty and destructive.  Yeah, it's a cute joke to say: Men!  But our differences are overplayed way too much.

We need to breed peace, love, compassion, understanding, communication skills into our children.  And beyond this, there are still evil souls who will commit atrocities, like the pedophiles all over the world, but that I hear about in America and Europe a lot.  (Unfortunatley, they are in Arabic and other countries as well.)

The current American government's only interest is power, oil, and glory.  (That's because they were taught violence when they were kids.)  Do you see the cycle?  It is for peace loving Muslims, and people of other faiths, to encourage peace and good behavior.

How does dropping bombs on innocent villages help anybody? My country should still be paying reparations to the black slaves who were stolen from their countries, the Indians whose land we stole, and the Japanese whom we massacered with the worst weapons of mass destruction use ever.

With paying all of our bills, and healthcare for all of our citizens, we wouldn't have any money for invading other countries.  But we'd have healthier, happier human being Americans.

By the way, I don't know of an Arabic country that is better.  Certainly not Jordan.  We all seem to have the same violent behavior and attitudes as a society.  It's really hard to purge and find peace, but we can try.