As most of you are aware of, recent reports by Newsweek (which have since been rescinded) claim that American soldiers in Guantamo flushed several Korans down the toilet as part of their “torture” treatment of Muslim prisoners. This news was received with outrage and rioting in many Islamic countries, followed by an outporing of apologies and explanations from the US – like explaining to us it’s incredibly bad because Muslims believe every single work in the Koran was written by Allah.
That’s the background, here are my questions.
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What on earth is the press thinking when it explains that last part? Is it meant to justify the deaths and injuries of hundreds of people in the riots? Jews believe every word in the Torah was written by God, and yet while they tend to treat their bible with respect and reverence (same as in Islam), I’m not aware of Jewish riots every time a Muslim destroys a copy of the book.
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As offensive as destroying a book may be to Muslims world wide – and I’m not saying it shouldn’t be – what the hell is wrong with a series of societies that riot when a book is defaced, but stand back and say NOTHING when (like, uh… NOW) an Italian aid worker is kidnapped, tortured, and threatened with beheading? This is an AID WORKER, not a solider!! How can this dichotomy between ignoring the attacks on humans and rioting over paper be tolerated by their religion?
And these same rioting societies say nothing when journalists, contractors, other aid workers, or soldiers are kidnapped and murdered. Or when planes are flown into buildings or trains blown up. Or when Iraqi civilians and policemen are bombed on a daily basis.
I mean, I’d at least expect American Muslims – who claim to hold American values and who say they are unfairly persecuted in the US – to rise up in protests every time innocent people are murdered by their religious brothers. Yet this doesn’t seem to be happening at all.
So in short, what is up with this religion that tolerates/condones the murder of civilians yet riots when books are destroyed?
It also seems that many Muslims, even Western ones, refuse to debate this and look at the other side of the issues. For instance, I asked a similar question on the Islam.org website in regards to this article:
Their response was to delete my comments.
And, anti-Islamic books at Amazon (that is, books that claim that Islam is not the religion of peace it claims to be) are frequently given bad reviews by readers claiming to be Muslims not based on the matieral in the book, but based on the threat of eternal damnation.
Links:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0879759844/104-8736552-3015935?v=glance
(Scroll down to the reviews, where the author, a former Muslim, is told his future “torment is already bad, you are making it worse,” and that he must “pray to Allah for forgiveness” for writing the book.
And before this gets moved to the Flaming Pit, I do believe these are legitimate questions about how the American press seems to be pandering to a group of religious zealots that don’t tolerate Western civilization’s freedoms in the slightest, and I’ve stuck to facts while stating my case, as touchy a subject as it may be.
PS - please don’t make this about the Iraq war. I’ve been opposed to it from day one, and I certainly believe many innocent Muslims were killed in the campaign. But that still doesn’t explain the 9/11 attacks and how they are praised by much of the Islamic world (remember, the attacks were long before the Iraq war), nor does it explain the Muslim world’s silence over the deaths of so many civilians and aid workers – as well as soldiers – at the hands of fundamentalists while they cry over mere books.
