They brought it on themselves...

Submitted by Brad Smith (United States), Feb 7, 2006 at 17:00

How many days pass that we don't hear of a suicide bomber somewhere in the middle east? Very few. When a Muslim goes into a Muslim community and blows up his Muslim self along with all his Muslim friends, nobody riots, nobody protests, and certainly nobody in other Muslim countries calls for the destruction and death of the group who killed Muslims.

Yet a cartoon, displaying a Muslim leader doing that which Muslims are doing every day elicits riots thousands of miles away causing deaths of more Muslims. Do Muslims really expect that the rest of the world will stand by and ignore the suicide bombers? Do they not invoke the very name of their God in justification of their murderous acts? Did they really not expect that sooner or later, someone was going to associate their leader with violence?

How can the general Muslim population not understand that the rest of the world associates Islam with violence? They cry out that we, the non-Muslim community, are ignorant and racist because we associate all Muslims with violence and make claims that only a few are radical.

Yet Palestinians just voted Hamas into power, a group that has long advocated violence. Does that not represent the will of the people? Iran has voted in a radical bloodthirsty leader too, this too obviously represents the will of the people. Where is the peaceful majority in those two prominent Muslim countries?

If Muslims want to save their reputation, and therefore the reputation of their leader, they'll have to suck it up and do something about it. Novel idea here: Vote into power someone who is against violence and give them the authority to deal with the violent groups. Of course, we know that wont happen. History has shown how unlikely that is.

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