# How many Muslims have been killed by Muslims in Iraq? Sudan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 18, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794 "2004-10-18T07:42:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/21 "2004-10-19T22:54:42Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > Every day it seems I hear about another car bombing, or suicide bombing, or insurgent attack, or this, or that, or the other, in Iraq. Muslim-on-Muslim violence, not American or Zionist on Muslim violence. There’s no outcry over it; I don’t hear the Muslim community in America condemning it; I don’t hear American liberals whining about it. Sometimes you **do** hear an outcry over it. There’s been a lot of outcry over what’s going on in West Darfur, Sudan – where everybody is a Muslim. But your typical Muslim-on-Muslim violence is less notable than, say, Muslim-on-Jew or Jew-on-Muslim violence because it usually a matter of crime or of civil strife rooted purely in politics, and it is not motivated by cultural conflicts between different religious groups – and such conflict is proving to be a horrible and intractable problem in the modern world, therefore any instance of it is newsworthy. And Muslim attacks on Americans in Iraq are newsworthy in the American media for even more obvious reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/22 "2004-10-20T01:31:55Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > I’m not really sure. The positions of “liberals” and “conservatives” on human-rights abuses and foreign intervention have shifted around a lot because of the Iraq war. Conservatives, generally, have been of the traditional isolationist mentality when it came to foreign intervention, at least the way I see it; yet, American conservatives are now justifying the invasion of Iraq as a humanitarian mission (now that nobody can find WMD.) Liberals, associated during the Clinton years with foreign activity (intervention in the Balkans, in Somalia, and foreign aid and peacekeeping missions) are now condemning the needless Iraq war and calling for a more isolationist policy, or at least wanting other nations to share more of the burden. What you’re referring to are the discussions about peacekeeping missions versus military interventions attached to an exit strategy. Conservatives (post-WWII) favor interventions and loathes peacekeeping missions (thus no Sudan intervention), while liberals feel the other way around. AFAIK the group of Americans on the far right who favors isolationism are far from the conservative majority. Wolfowitz himself said some time ago that Congress would never had gone along if humanitarian reasons were the only ones voiced as reasons for invading Iraq. We all can figure out why the present justification for the invasion of Iraq is just that. What caused me to ask the question is that it seems that conservatives always settle down on the non-human rights side whenever we discuss enemy combatants, torture, assassination, etc, and are generally supportive of dictators as long as they are allies. Saddam is bad, but somehow the president of Uzbekistan is good and a member of the coalition of willing? It’s a rotten policy, IMO. > [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > I think it’s more Israel, and less America, that they’re complaining about. Part of it is the double standard. Take the assassination of Hamas leader Yassin- condemned on a large scale by anti-Israel voices and by fairly neutral peace-movement voices. Do you think ANYONE would complain like that if it was a US gunship launching a missile at Osama Bin Laden (even if he was in a wheelchair?) I don’t think so, but the situation is analagous: both leaders of big terrorist groups, both with blood on their hands, both considered threats by the powers-to-be. I don’t think Yassin versus Osama is a valid comparison, but I suspect the heart of your argument is that why shouldn’t Israel assassinate Yassin given his past? No mercy for the terrorists! Well, besides the fact that Israel, at least in this case, could have arrested him, the assassination escalated the conflict and made more Palestinians sympathetic to the fundamentalists amongst them. Did the benefits outweight the costs in this case? Maybe, but it’s frighting to watch politicians fail to understand that these kind of wars has two be won on two fronts: defeating the enemies of today _and_ denying them the soldiers of tomorrow. Today, the European populace generally side with the Palestinians on a 5 to 1 ratio. It wasn’t always like that, in the 70s and early 80s Israel enjoyed broad support over here. But Europe, unlike America, also knows what it’s like to live under occupation, and as images of shackled Palestinians being beaten by rocks by Israeli soldiers to break their arms and images of nail-bombs fired into UN run refugee camps hit the tv screens, well, support for Israel kind of eroded. I can’t recall even a single insurgency movement that has been defeated by guns alone in modern times, but I can name several conflicts that have been resolved by smartness (Northern Ireland, East Timor), and even more conflicts that remain deadlocked due to unwillingness by the stronger part to use smartness, like Chechnya. I think the fundamental difference between our opinions is that I believe the main reason for the current world conflict, whether it’s Muslims killing Christians or Muslims killing other Muslims, is that the West for too long has supported regimes who have suppressed and killed their own people, while you believe hordes of Muslims are lining up to kill Christians and whoever cooperates with them out of lust to islamize the planet. Or am I wrong? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/23 "2004-10-20T12:29:30Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > Having no connection to Colombia and not making any mention of it in a post about the Muslim world is another. Hold on a minute, **PaulFitzroy**. By your logic, you do: you’re part of the Christian world - connection. You’re also in the Americas. Now issue a public apology for all those dreadful things that are going on in Colombia. And don’t try to give me any crap that this isn’t the same thing. This is _exactly_ what you’re doing every time you condemn “the Muslim world”. The “Muslim world” extends from the Balkans all the way down to Timor. Why should Croats, or Indonesians, or Bangladeshis, or even perfectly innocent people in the Middle East and Iraq, issue apologies for things done by extremists that happen in Iraq? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/24 "2004-10-20T14:26:23Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > The point is that if I had posted this to General Questions, it would have been moved here anyway, so I eliminated the unneccessary work on our mods’ part. > > If anyone else would like to make fun of me without addressing my point, feel free. Just know that you’re not contributing. I have no intention of making fun of you. Your OP title asks a question that has a factual answer. You then go on to ask a couple of questions along the lines of “what about such and such?” Is there a postion that needs defending or attacking? Are you asking if if it is Ok for Muslims to kill Muslims? Are you complaining about the media? I would be glad to contribute but I just don’t know what the debate is, that’s all. Respectfully, TRT ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/25 "2004-10-20T17:56:11Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > If I was a member of a Colombian paramilitary squad and defended the actions of the same, that’d be one thing. Having no connection to Colombia and not making any mention of it in a post about the Muslim world is another. Oh, so _those_ are the rules. If you mention the “Muslim world”, you are required to give equal time to _every_ injustice ever committed, but otherwise, you don’t have to. Thanks for clearing that up. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/26 "2004-10-21T10:58:21Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > If I was a member of a Colombian paramilitary squad and defended the actions of the same, that’d be one thing. Having no connection to Colombia and not making any mention of it in a post about the Muslim world is another. If I was a member of some orga ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/27 "2004-10-21T11:03:00Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > If I was a member of a Colombian paramilitary squad and defended the actions of the same, that’d be one thing. Having no connection to Colombia and not making any mention of it in a post about the Muslim world is another. If I was a member of some organisation committing crimes that on their own give proof of the contradiction of the organisation’s goal with the commands of Islam, and even when knowing this I would support these goals and actions… That would be one thing. If the “whole Muslim world” would do that… That would also be one thing. Having no connection with all of this which can count for for 99,999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 % of “the whole Muslims world” as you name it , I don’t see what you are trying to talk about. That is the other thing. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/28 "2004-10-21T11:16:48Z")
> [@Alien](#): > > Today, the European populace generally side with the Palestinians on a 5 to 1 ratio. It wasn’t always like that, in the 70s and early 80s Israel enjoyed broad support over here. But Europe, unlike America, also knows what it’s like to live under occupation, and as images of shackled Palestinians being beaten by rocks by Israeli soldiers to break their arms and images of nail-bombs fired into UN run refugee camps hit the tv screens, well, support for Israel kind of eroded. That is an accurate description of the ongoing shift in the opinion and view of the average EU citizen regarding this situation. Even ten years ago the understanding of the conflict was - to say it mildly - extremely poor. This counted for my personal friends (and for those I studied with until they got informed because of their study) and even inside my mother’s own family. There was no way you could get any reasonable conversation that did not end - or even started - with blank support for Israel. Simply because there was no counterweight against what came in the news about the Palestinian side and hence to gain some insight they had to inform themselves starting from below zero. Salaam. A [size]Off now to Islamize the Planet.[/size] ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/29 "2004-10-21T11:19:14Z")
> [@](#): > > If anyone else would like to make fun of me without addressing my point, feel free. Just know that you’re not contributing. Well, it is possible that making fun of broad overgeneralizations, vaguely masked personal prejudices, and poorly constructed arguments based on faulty premises could be considered as _contributing to the education_ of a poster. Of course, the poster would need to demonstrate, over the course of a couple of months of such contributions that he or she was capable of actually learning from those contributions, so it is also possible that those contributions may be ineffective. ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/30 "2004-10-21T11:19:41Z")
Even the coding on a US based message board is resisting its inevitable Islamisation… You would get frustrated from less, but as you see I never give up until I have won. Be very scared. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/31 "2004-10-21T11:23:11Z")
**Aldebaran:** \*Having no connection with all of this which can count for 99,999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 % of “the whole Muslims world” \* Well, **that** would imply that only 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % of Muslims worldwide have any connection with terrorism. That’s 1/10[sup]48[/sup] of the total Muslim population. If there are a billion Muslims in the world, that means that the Muslim connection with terrorism is limited to 1/10[sup]39[/sup] of one individual, or about one ten-billionth of one atom. Go a little easy on the hyperbole, pal. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/32 "2004-10-21T11:23:26Z")
Regarding the “coding on a US based message board”: GIGO. If you type it incorrectly, it will display incorrectly–hardly the fault of the software or the country. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/33 "2004-10-21T12:41:58Z")
I blame it all on brother Dyslex. I doubt the OP has the same excuse available - heheheh - and I always say: Use what you have and do it well…My teachers would be so very proud in the solitude of their by me inflicted madness ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794/34 "2004-10-21T13:16:16Z")
> [@Mr.Niceguy](#): > > I don’t think there is any. I think it just helps **Paul Fitroy** sleep better knowing that someone is killing Muslims besides Jews. :wally Umm… ambiguous? Do you mean he’s happy that someone is killing Muslims besides also killing Jews or that he’s happy that somebody else besides Jews are killing Muslims? > [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Are Muslims actually minions of Satan, or are they just psychopathic killers every one? Do we have to choose?! I prefer my Muslims to be psychopathic killer minions of Satan! > [@Aldebaran](#): > > Off now to Islamize the Planet. 🙂 …off to bed, I’ve got a severe outbreak of islamphobia [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-muslims-have-been-killed-by-muslims-in-iraq-sudan/269794.md?page=1)