Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
The problem is not that we shy away from religion, it is that we use it as the primary evil without looking any further. We make no effort to understand how religion is being used by the extremist. The history being invoked, to try to find the reason why anyone would follow them. We think in shallow terms - they are evil people who are religious, therefore their religion is evil and so is everyone who practices it.

The recent article "The Coming War with the Caliphate" is a prime example. The author had no idea what he was saying by using that term the way he did. He might have well have said "The Coming War with the Ummah."

For some people it is enough to know that they are Muslim extremists. That categorization alone explains their motivations. It is this narrow thinking that causes the problem.

Extremists of all strips use a doctrinal base from which to espouse their message. Be it Muslim, Cristian, Communism, or some ethnic identity myth. Again, it is not the religion that is at issue, it is the base of the extremist view and why that view resonates with a particular segment of the population.

Thinking that way is complicated. Thinking that way is hard. But what we have done up until now is not working. There is no reason to expect that it will in the future.

BTW, it was Slap that compared America to a religion, not me. You can't mix metaphors without revealing a little about how you think.

Explain to me how Islam is a political system. What part of the Koran explains how a government should be established? What part discusses who the executive is? How laws are made? How budgets are determined? The reason there is a Sunni Shia split is because Mohamed failed to leave anything like a plan for future governance. So no, Islam is not a form of government. It lays out some laws, just as the bible does. That is nothing new. It certainly does not make Islam a political system.
First off I think very few people in uniform default to all Muslims are evil terrorists, and I think more than half have actually read a fair amount of history on the topic. You and Bob can come across as more than a little condescending at times. Our military is full of bright and educated folks who have put their lives on the line to protect Muslims, so keep that in mind.

Second we have always had our share of simpletons, to include rednecks, in the public sector who form opinions based on 15 second sound bytes in the news. Those people don't make policy, but admittedly if stupidity mobilizes voters then it could influence policy.

Islam according to al-Qaeda and I believe the Wahabbists should guide both social and political life. The laws are based on Sharia law, and law is a function of the state. I agree that governments must eventually form institutions, and since Saudi Arabia seems to be a state that follows Islam closely maybe a close look at their institutions would be informative.

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer205/what-political-islam

What is Political Islam

by Charles Hirschkind

Over the last few decades, Islam has become a central point of reference for a wide range of political activities, arguments and opposition movements. The term “political Islam” has been adopted by many scholars in order to identify this seemingly unprecedented irruption of Islamic religion into the secular domain of politics and thus to distinguish these practices from the forms of personal piety, belief and ritual conventionally subsumed in Western scholarship under the unmarked category “Islam.” In the brief comments that follow, I suggest why we might need to rethink this basic framework.

The claim that contemporary Muslim activities are putting Islam to use for political purposes seems, at least in some instances, to be warranted. Political parties such as Hizb al-‘Amal in Egypt or the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria that base their appeal on their Islamic credentials appear to exemplify this instrumental relation to religion. Yet a problem remains, even in such seemingly obvious examples: In what way does the distinction between the political and nonpolitical domains of social life hold today? Many scholars have argued that “political Islam” involves an illegitimate extension of the Islamic tradition outside of the properly religious domain it has historically occupied. Few, however, have explored this trend in relation to the contemporaneous expansion of state power and concern into vast domains of social life previously outside its purview -- including that of religion.
Gets more interesting as you keep reading....