on a few things said:
Violence today my Muslim extremists is light compared to most historical violence. Some people compare Muslim extremism to Facism-both in form of ideology and threat worlwide. In under 20 years facists and the wars they started killed at least 60 million people at a time 2.5 billion people lived.
IN the 25 years since the Ismaic Revolution in Iran, all the wars in which we could say Islamic militancy has a potent role combined have killed under 5 million people and today we have 6 billion, with what is going on in Sudan far and away the main one, the Iraq-Iran war being number 2, and Algeria coming third. Notice that none of these three involved "the west" in any significant way, and for the most part "the west" ignored them, as long as they did not trample on their mayor interests, which is why the middle one got so much play, since Iraq and Iran were messing around the richest sources of oil in the world.
So no, Muslim militancy HAS NOT been distinctly bloody-not for mankind's history.
One has to wonder as well, if there is an inherent problem with Islam, why is it that all this muslim militancy really seems to get started in 1979? I remember a cover story on Newsweek from 1979 trying to explain to Americans what the hell Islam was because for most of them it was a mystery-back then it was all socialist vs freedom (even the Israeli-Arab struggle came in those terms). The fact is that muslim militancy is new, as a political force in the world, starting from 1979 on. And if we start picking off variables as to why this violence has occured, the Q'Uran is a poor one, it having being a constant since at least 1000AD.
Modern Islamist militancy is drivben by the wrenching socio-economic changes ocuring in the Arab world, much like intense violence in Latin America in the 70s and 80's was driven by changes there. That that violence extends to the West has everything to do with connections based on national insterests the West has in Muslim lands that it did not have to the same extent in the Americas, and that it does not have today in Africa, which has been in the same period a far more brutal place, even if we label Sudan an "Islamic War" and not "African"
Violence today my Muslim extremists is light compared to most historical violence. Some people compare Muslim extremism to Facism-both in form of ideology and threat worlwide. In under 20 years facists and the wars they started killed at least 60 million people at a time 2.5 billion people lived.
IN the 25 years since the Ismaic Revolution in Iran, all the wars in which we could say Islamic militancy has a potent role combined have killed under 5 million people and today we have 6 billion, with what is going on in Sudan far and away the main one, the Iraq-Iran war being number 2, and Algeria coming third. Notice that none of these three involved "the west" in any significant way, and for the most part "the west" ignored them, as long as they did not trample on their mayor interests, which is why the middle one got so much play, since Iraq and Iran were messing around the richest sources of oil in the world.
So no, Muslim militancy HAS NOT been distinctly bloody-not for mankind's history.
One has to wonder as well, if there is an inherent problem with Islam, why is it that all this muslim militancy really seems to get started in 1979? I remember a cover story on Newsweek from 1979 trying to explain to Americans what the hell Islam was because for most of them it was a mystery-back then it was all socialist vs freedom (even the Israeli-Arab struggle came in those terms). The fact is that muslim militancy is new, as a political force in the world, starting from 1979 on. And if we start picking off variables as to why this violence has occured, the Q'Uran is a poor one, it having being a constant since at least 1000AD.
Modern Islamist militancy is drivben by the wrenching socio-economic changes ocuring in the Arab world, much like intense violence in Latin America in the 70s and 80's was driven by changes there. That that violence extends to the West has everything to do with connections based on national insterests the West has in Muslim lands that it did not have to the same extent in the Americas, and that it does not have today in Africa, which has been in the same period a far more brutal place, even if we label Sudan an "Islamic War" and not "African"
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