The gist of the article I posted a link to above is that increasing numbers of Muslims around the world are choosing to believe that the United States is engaging in a war against Muslims, choosing to believe Iraq’s reports about the war (for example, denials of the presence of Coalition forces in Bagdhad), choosing to sign up to fight “for God, not for Saddam.”
Does this mean that Iraq has successfully sold this war as an attack against all of Islam? If the Muslim world considers this a holy war, what can the Coalition nations do to counter this view?
Cucko - the information minister is trying his damndest to get a jihad going. But just because some arabs want a jihad, doesn’t mean this will be one. We are not there to take away their religion. We are their to liberate Iraqis from a viscious dictator.
Look at it like this, try and visualize one year from today…what do you see in Baghdad. I doubt it is going to be Saddam or any of this Bathist followers.
As Phlosphr says, this is spin. But Saddam’s regime, despite lip service to the contrary, is not Islamic based. He invokes Allah but just because it’s an Islamic country doesn’t mean it’s an Islamic government.
Trouble is, it’s commonly mis-used by the extremists who want a “holy war” against the US or Israel or Christianity or anyone who doesn’t fit that extremist’s vision of a “perfect Muslim”.
The border between general questions and debates is a bit fluid these days. =)
Phlosphr, CookingWithGas and Mahaloth, what the coalition intends and how religious Saddam really is has little relevance - if Jim, the big guy in the bar, thinks you were ogling his girlfriend, it doesn’t help that you were staring into space while pondering your next novel; he wants to hit you. As for how religious Saddam is; if Jim’s girlfriend said you were ogling here and tried to break them up, it wouldn’t help if she was sleeping around and planning to break up.