Second, I am not sure what “balance within itself” means, what it should look like, or how or why “Islam” needs to find such a thing anyway. Do other religions have “balance within themselves”? Does Christianity”? Does Judaism? Does Hinduism? Sikhism? Buddhism (believe it or not, there ARE violent Buddhists!).

Third, why does “the west” need policies regarding Islam anyway? Does it have them regarding other religions? Or is it just that “Islam” is the thing that has replaced Communism as the bogeyman du jour?

So, help me, please, to understand what this idea of “balance within itself” is, because it is not clear to me what it is supposed to be, and what it is supposed to look like.

Experience vs change…change is inevitable, like the Mississippi river , but experience is required to navigate it.

In a larger sense, the US really doesn’t care if your majority faith practices human sacrifice, so long as the oil (and platinum and bauxite and rubber and bituminous coal) keep moving.

American business fears, above all other stressors, Change. All the corporate pap RE: “Think outside the box,” “Shift the paradigm, ” etc., ad nauseum, are just lipstick on a pig…in this case, meant to seduce Baby Boomers and those slightly younger than them who missed Woodstock and the Age of Aquarius, but who really like the music.

It’s a planned mass delusion, of course, foisted upon those with no inner cultural ethic and limited critical thinking skills by, “public relations firms” and in-house flacks whose brief is to snooker The Help.

These people are so externally validated that they can’t even swaddle their young without checking to be certain that the pajamas they’ve bought are, “the Bomb.”

The Sa`ud family, who rule the Hejaz, which is now known as Saudi Arabia, are Wahhabis, and as such are about as extremist and medieval as you can get. You could even use the term barbaric. In fact, much of what they follow and what they impose, is so extreme that it is un-Islamic. That is particularly true of their policies toward women, and toward religions other than Islam, and even in some regards toward other Islamic sects. And yet it seems that this is the “moderate Muslims” that America seeks to support?

What America seeks to support, and therefore defines as “moderate” is those who are compliant. America doesn’t care beyond that about anything else. Thus, America supports the Wahhabi extremist Saudis and ignores their horrific record for human rights, and women’s rights. And at the same time, America lists among the most evil of evils the secular regime of Bashir Al Asad, and does so despite the fact that Bashir’s regime is not ruled by religion, and he is much better than his father was in terms of rights and freedoms, and also more open in his approach to foreign policy.

I could go on and on with examples, but the bottom line is that America’s definition of “moderate” when it comes to Muslim countries has only to do with whether the regime of that country is sufficiently submissive to America.

The House of Saud? Why Shirin? Are they not trying to broker deals on the barrelhead as we speak? What of life for them that are ruled by the sword?

What they want is parties that threaten to be independent of them. Therefore, I think the last thing they want is trutly nationalist parties of any kind, secular or otherwise.

Yeah right! I guess that’s why “America” supports the Saudis, who are about as radical as Muslims come.

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/2007/12/post_120.html

I hear Cheney going HERRR,,,HERRR…Why didn’t I think of that??? WHERRR…Wherrr.
Remember a three ring circus has a big tent….Next week the circus clowns will be doing amnesia dance on the highwire.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062049.php

It’s a two-fer from TPM. Spencer Ackerman interviews Barnett Rubin about the Bhutto assassination and what the real role of the U.S. was (and is) regarding the election. He makes a pretty compelling case for Bush and Cheney having drawn Bhutto to Pakistan on a trainload of b.s.

Even more complelling is the video of Josh Marshall’s interview with Rubin from October, outlining the realities of the Taliban stronghold in Quetta, Pakistan. Video is about 10 minutes long.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on it, Larry.

Not knowing the many shades of Islam, and what the equilibrium of Shria law will be in the region,

Most Muslims don’t want complete Sharia law. They want modern laws and states that fit within and are not contradictory to the Islamic tradition and Sharia law.
Comment by swio | 2007-12-27 20:02:17

how long will it take to get there?
America seeks to support “moderate Muslims” we are told. Yet,” moderate Muslims” see us doing the opposite. What happens when you put a “moderate Muslim” in between the current American Foreign policy and Islamic extremism? My humble guess is they won’t be moderate for long.

The US, for its part, doesn’t have a problem with theocracy (either here or in the mid East) propping up Shiias and Sunnis in Iraq. The last thing they or their allies (including Israel) want are secular nationalist opposition parties in any of these countries. So, when I heard about this assassination, I immediately thought Musharif and his pals were behind it, which includes AQ.

Dr. Boaz Ganor posits a model for terrorism in which terrorist groups act based on both operational capacity and motivation. The latter has been ignored with Bush’s military-only response to the GWOT. Regional cooperation (esp with India)re: the investigation of Bhutto’s assassination (with a concomittant step-back by the US) may be the best bet (although this putative policy seems to have a deaf ear with the Presidential candidates).