Wow. I'm disgusted at anyone who thinks America should treat Muslims the way Nazi Germany treated Jews.

100% Agreed.

It's not surprising though when every news show has been linking the word Islam with the word Terrorist for the past 5 years that it starts sticking.

Advertising, whether it's propaganda or corn-pops WORKS. People form their opinions from what they see, and most people see what's fed to them.



/end rant

We need to help the ignorant public see the truth before it's too late, no?

I couldn't agree more.

I saw an amazing collection of photos from Iran on another site a short while back. It was simply a collection of 100s of photos from Iran, mainly Tehran. The amazing thing about it was how *normal* the pictures were - how really similar to us the people of Iran are.

I'm digging around to see if I can find it again. I'll post it here if I can.

I found it. Check it out on the new links section.

To say that there is no connection between people's version's of Islam and Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas, al-Qaida, Hezbollah and their idea of jihad is extremely ignorant. There is a reason why the news links "terrorist" and "Islam" together because much of terrorism is done because of people's Islamic beliefs. The news is just linking the reason why the people do such horrible acts to their actions.

But equally as ignorant is to assume that every Muslim believes in the same way as these terrorist groups. Because one person acts in one way because of their religious beliefs does not mean that everyone of the same religion believes and acts in the same way.

Labling is another way of judging people by sterotypes. It's not seeing the person for who they are. People who believe that other Americans need labels warning other people of them need to move to a country that has no freedom. A country does not have freedom if freedom is not offered to everybody.

Then explain why the term "Irish terrorists" or "Catholic terrorist" doesn't exist? Sounds a little ludicrous doesn't it? Yet the problem in Northern Island had been going on for well over 20 years and was *NEVER* branded as a race issue.

You're right, most of the terrorists are Islamic, but there's been a very one-sided demonising of the whole religion by the media and the government.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing more irony in that paragraph than you intended. If you just exchange the word "Americans" for "people" I'm 100% with you. Part of the beautiful freedom of America is being able to criticize when the (falible) government makes stupid decisions and not be whisked off to a dark dungeon somewhere.

I think the reason why Islam is being associated with terrorism is because the actual "terrorists" are using Islam as justification for their actions.

I think saying each time we say "Islamic terrorist" we need to include "Who has defined their religion in a way that justifies violence towards non-believers, which is not the mainstream opinion taught by most Muslims, which is that all people can get along with each other peacefully" is a little ridiculous.

And as for the whole Irish stuff... while I'm not expert, I believe the reason they weren't called all those other things, was because they gave themselves a name to begin with. The "I.R.A." was called that... and there was no need for any other nomenclature.

You're right, that is a bit ridiculous to say all of that every time you say "Islamic Terrorists", even though it'd be more accurate. The unfortunate thing is that the side effect of *not* saying that is that a huge proportion of people in the US now believe that *all* Muslims are terrorists (as per the Islam radio survey post).

Sadly I agree with you... some people can't tell the difference.

However, I think that we're as responsible for this they (that is the non-extremists) are. This is an argument frequently made, but to say it again, those who aren't involved but represent their religion need to take a stronger stand to say that they don't approve of this. I think a lot of American's see many in the religion as apathetic towards 'Islamic terrorists' and that can be just as insulting.