Last week's terror in the name of Islam

I am very sorry to tell you that the US, and thus the left have far bigger problems than Islam right now.

In fact it is quite low on the totem pole. This is probably why you are not seeing it discussed.

 

So, if Islam is the problem, then the solution is banning Islam, right? I don't really care about theoretical discussions- I want to know what the solution is... maybe, it's something I could get on board with. Should Islam be more heavily regulated? Should mosques be required to allow extra surveillance? I'm not saying this to be sarcastic, if you're going to spend an inordinate amount of CF space on the problems of Islam.... then what is the best solution?

 

What's weird is after all the angry debate - your solution is the same as pretty much most liberals.

 

FWIW, now local authorities are reporting that this wasn't a terror-related attack. Just sad, instead of crazy, evil and sad.

 

Wanted to final thank ATW for the thoughtful and detailed post. How many times do people honestly respond to a tough question?

I agree strongly with #'s 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11.

I agree with the basic premise of your #1. I'm not sure how much harder life can get for reform-minded Muslims, honestly. I don't think liberal apologists can be a big source of grief for them.
#2 sounds good to me but I wouldn't know how to implement it.
On #3, I agree in principle but we'd need concrete things like #4.
I don't know enough about #9. If people use Sharia law in a way that does not conflict with local and federal laws (for example), I don't see a problem. Like the way people can buy or sell food, or how they can or cannot handle banking, etc. If that just governs Muslims dealing with Muslims, and it violates no local laws, I don't think we should try to ban in. I don't think we really could.

On #10, I feel like lots of people are trying that. Iran seemed to be a great example for many years until it was much less so suddenly. :-( This is going to be a tough one. Like so many types of extreme thinking these days, they just opt for their own slanted schools.

Thanks again, ATW.

 

I've been trying to get him to answer this question for years. Good job in finally being able to pin him down. What's ironic is that he has posted most of what has already been discussed. I don't think Reform-minded Muslims find it helpful when people demonize Islam though - it just puts everyone on the defensive and binds them together against the west. I do think that the U.S. made a huge colossal mistake in choosing to support Islamic fundamentalism for a short term objective (defeating Russia).

The problem is very much the same problem you have here with right-wing extremist groups. You aren't going to root out Islamic fundamentalism and more than you are going to root out Neo-Nazism. The question is how can you stop them from resorting to violence? It seems the big difference is that these terrorist groups pray on weak-minded young with these manipulative clerics. These organizations that recruit young people for the purposes of turning them into terrorists - there has to be a weakness in the strategy. Afterall, they have to have a way of identifying such people and bringing them to them. Most aren't self-radicalized

 

1. Stop with the lie of "Islam has nothing to do with it". It strengthens right-wing extremists and makes life harder for reform-minded Muslims.

Sure. As long as you apply that to all religions, I'm good with that.

1. Support only reform-minded Muslims.
2. Push back the influence of extremist Islamic ideology specifically from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran.
3. Stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and Iran.
4. Stop the dependence on oil from these countries.
5. Isolate fanatical Islamists like Erdogan (Turkey).
6. Do not accept misogynist practices (forced veiling, lesser rights for women, discrimination of homosexuals, etc.) you would never accept from e.g. the Catholic church from Muslims as "cultural differences". Liberals specifically fought long and hard for equal rights for women, homosexuals, etc. - it's a travesty to see them accepting horrible practices because they want to be PC.

Completely agree on this- I find their treatment of women and homosexuals disgusting (BTW, discrimination against homosexuals is not misogynistic- that deals with women- homosexuality deals with both sexes). But how is this pertinent here in the U.S.? And you talk of liberals accepting this- even if we denounce it, how is this any of our business? What right do we have to tell a country and its people how they should act? Should we allow Europe to lecture the U.S. on our screwed-up gun culture?

BTW, before we talk about what they do regarding discrimination of homosexuals, we need to talk about people in our own country who do so. That still goes on.

1. Improve screening of immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, specifically in Europe.

Improve screening, period.

1. Do not accept any form of Sharia law in Western countries, not even in civil arbitration - it is simply entirely incompatible with Western values.

Agree with this, as well- keep all religion out of government

1. Find a way to support education and spread of Western values (e.g. equal rights for women, freedom of speech, freedom of media, equal rights for homosexuals, no religious discrimination, etc. etc.) in predominantly Muslim countries. Education has to eventually be the key to overcoming indoctrination by medieval religious beliefs.

A long shot. Don't think this will happen for quite a while. Gradually, I think each passing generation will get better.

But I don't see how the Middle East is going to listen to us, anyway. Just based on our involvement with Iraq alone, why should they listen to us? They already see our attempt at nation-building in Iraq as a failure, so I don't think they're really going to accept Western values.

1. Do not bomb Muslim countries in response to terror - it is not the right response, and it will only serve those who promote a culture of self-victimization as an excuse to recruit even more terrorists.

So, basically, the jist of most of your arguments is that we need to denounce Islam in countries with predominantly Muslim populations. Because most of your recommendations have little to do with how Muslims in America act. If there are those that practice Sharia, then of course. But most of the stuff you are talking about happens overseas, and how is it our place to tell them, as horrible as some of that is? The only thing you can do, really, is 3 and 4. Good luck with those.

 

I wasn't sure where to post this, so I just picked this thread. Erdogan continues his march towards making Turkey his own fiefdom. Thousands remain under arrest, with more being arrested as time goes on, the media is getting muzzled, etc., with many other things he's doing that I could mention. Many fear he will turn Turkey into an "Islamic State," and Turkey has a long secular tradition. Erdogan is taking this path, in my opinion, in an attempt to get the uneducated in the cities and the rural Turks in the countryside to vote for him, which has been working.

My reason for the post, however, concerns something else. Erdogan's bizarre "tilt" towards Turkey's ancient enemy, Russia. He has signed a contract to purchase Russia's S-400 anti-aircraft system for about $2.5 billion dollars. It is an outrageous act that will not work out well for Turkey, in my opinion. It is also a slap in the face to fellow members of NATO, who will become increasingly reluctant to sell advanced weaponry to Turkey. Erdogan also continues to deliberately worsen relations with the United States, and those relations are going downhill fast. I think Erdogan is being fed false information by Russian intelligence, and I also think the recent Turkish elections have been influenced the same way the 2016 election here was influenced by Putin. It's weird and it's dangerous, in my opinion.

 

Erdogan has long been a fool. There are definitely bigger fools, but the guy is bad news.