One difference between Muslim violence and Christian violence is that there is no Bible verse commanding Christians to commit violence for any reason. There are commands in the Old Testament to kill certain people at certain times, but they are all directed at situations in which no Christian finds himself.

On the other hand, the Koran tells Muslims to kill non-Muslims left, right, and center. If they're not Muslim, it's open season.

Except that the United States attacked the Middle East first

Really Jaguar,

When did this happen. Sir Han Sir Han killed RFK in 1968. When did we attack them?

We went into Lebanon to help stop the civil war, attacked no one and had 240 marines killed. Who did we attack?

Until 9/11, the only truly middle eastern country we attacked was Iraq and that was because he had invaded another country.

Sure we bombed Libya, but they had a hand in a Berlin club bombing that killed soldiers. Not to mention Lockerbie.

So please do tell oh sainted one, when did we attack the Middle East?

jaguar? I find your troll-fu lacking.

Attilla Girl: while "The Troubles" has always been presented as a clash of religions, it's more to do with last 'vestige of Empire.' The Brits left everywhere except--for no reason that made any sense--those last few northern counties.

Neither history, philosophy, nor theology matter to the people drawing these moral equivalencies.

The moral order of the West is based on Christianity. Every time the West has opposed Christian principles, Christianity has provided the moral critique by which the West has been corrected. (This holds true from the time that rising Christian influence ended Roman paterfamilias and infanticide, through the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, all the way to Wilberforce and MLK.) But the moral-equivalence elitists cannot abide any moral order that transcends State will-to-power or opposes the zeitgeist, so they hate Christianity.

There's an old joke, "fascism is always descending upon America but somehow always lands in Europe". Well, the West always has its eyes trained against attacks from Christianity, but somehow the attack always manages to come from Islam.

The Crusader occupation of the Arabian Peninsula, the propping up of puppet dictators and plunder of oil, the support of the Zionist bandit state,
the tormenting of Iraq with sanctions

That's all pre-2001, you know the rest. The attack on Iraq and murder of half a million people over invisible WMD, 2003-present.

Jaguar - can I call you Jaguar? - there's so much historical innaccuracy and incompleteness - plus one outright lie - in that "summation" that I'm going to be charitable and assume you're just not very intelligent or well-read.

Yeah, TC--I do realize that the troubles were more cultural and political than religious. And yet, when I hear people identify "the real Irish" strictly by their belonging to a particular Church (the one I belong to, in fact), it bothers me. It clouds the issue. I brought Ireland up only because it is an example of self-declared Christians behaving in an un-Christian way--and since I was raised Methodist, I'll just point out that the behavior of the Orangemen who parade through Catholic neighborhoods is outrageous.

Which brings me to Craig's point, and John's. I understand that the Lord was perfectly explicit on this point: turn the other cheek. But the Old Testament is less oriented toward forgiveness--yet Jews do not tend to behave aggressively. So it isn't just a matter of what is said in Scripture, or other holy writings. It also has to do with socialization.

In the West, everyone--Christians, Jews, Unitarians, Wiccans, etc. etc.--socializes young boys (and girls) to channel their innate aggression into productive activity--and if they can't, to write bad poetry about it.

In many of the Islamic-influenced extremist subcultures, raw aggression is touted as a virtue, and murder is praised.

So the fact that huge numbers of Muslims live perfectly quiet lives in pursuit of their own happiness tends to be obscured by the fact that others are setting off bombs.

My main point is, if we make concessions to the bombers--such as by censoring material that offends them, when the equivalent anti-Christian (anti-anything) material is widely available, we are setting the stage for world-wide civil war.

Because it's just a matter of time before another religious sect picks up the bomb-making equipment and goes after parity.

"My main point is, if we make concessions to the bombers-..."

Agreed. Which drives my Ma (borne in Eire) absolutley nuts when it comes to me. I want Gerry Adams run out of town on a rail.

Accepting him, a la Arafat, is what made me loathe Bubba Clinton. Same as that douche Paisley, et al, there are certain people who should just be shunned.

Like me, when my backyard barbecues get out of control!

"The Crusader occupation of the Arabian Peninsula,"

The Crusaders conquered what is today called Palestine. They most certainly did *not* occupy the Arabian peninsula.

"[t]he propping up of puppet dictators"

Since the people who wanted to rule in the stead of the "puppet dictators" are every bit the dictator themselves, this is like replacing a red house with a red house.

"and plunder of oil,"

Every drop of oil taken from the Middle East by westerners was paid for.

"the support of the Zionist bandit state,"

Dude, the Arabs who lived there in 1947 were too poor to be worth robbing. In every war between Arabs and Jews, the Arabs have fired the first shot. *EVERY* *TIME*.

"the tormenting of Iraq with sanctions"
No, it was Saddam who tormented Iraq.

"That's all pre-2001, you know the rest."
Yes, we removed a dictator who was sponsoring terrorism (he did offer bounties to the families of suicide bombers, you know).

"The attack on Iraq and murder of half a million people"

I doubt that even ten percent of the Iraqis who have died in Iraq since 2003 died from American action, and the vast majority of those were shooting at Americans at the time.

The rest were killed by other Iraqis or foreign Muslims, who are violating the word of the prophet for no higher purpose than to keep one Muslim nation from having a government that is not based on the rule of the strong over the weak.

"over invisible WMD"

The WMD was quite visible when it was hanging from the end of a rope in Iraq some time ago.

Better example: Eric Rudolph.