Mosks legitimite targets for millitary action?

yup, but the israelis are even closer, it's not like Bush is waging war to counter european concern about nukes, allthouygh you make a legitimate point, maybe we europeans should become cheerleaders and start waving american flags, while young american kids die to protect our interests.

 

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I know! How about leaving the mosques alone but flooding it with holy water, if the Muslims have such a thing, thus drowning everyone in it?

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-- Long live the Female Messiah!

 

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I am shocked at the amount of anti Muslim hate in this thread, I assume the moderators are quite happy with it !!!

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Oh come on, I was just kidding.

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Seriously. If Arabs have attacked the United States in the name of Islam, then it's only natural that Americans begin viewing Muslims from a military perspective. What do you expect us to do, just sit down and get shot at? We need to live, too, you know ...

-- Long live the Female Messiah!

 

True, the U.S. is not fighting muslims over there, we are trying to help them by suppressing minority elements that hate freedom. Mosques are off-limits to attack for obvious reasons. There are exceptions if there are no worshippers inside, and fighters are seen taking refuge there, or firing from there.

 

It depends on the situation. We have the right to fire back but we should take great pains not to damage them beyond repair. The older the mosque the more we should respect it.It is a sad fact that the word muslim is becoming interchangeable with terrorist in the U.S. We do not hate muslims or arabs in general. I have known maybe four personally. Their image is contrasted by the images of the common civilians desecrating the dead bodies of americans. You speak constantly on how civilized the muslim people are yet we see crowds of them acting like savages. That explains the rage that most americans are feeling towards the entire group of muslims at this time.

 

I would like to ask all those who answered #1 on the poll, what about those old statues that were destroyed in afghanistan by the taliban. Those should also have been sacred and left alone. They also were a piece of history and should have been left for the world to study. I'd guess the taliban also destroyed any other "sacred" things they came across that weren't muslim. Another thing is the looting of the baghdad museum during the war, now this wouldn't necessarily be laid at the feet of islam, but surely those artifacts from the cradle of civilization should be considered sacred. Where are they now? Probably melted down and funding terrorism. Religion has done no one any good. It's a destroyer. Destroy it.

 

Religon is all that kept learning alive in the dark ages. All of our laws are based off of taboos or religous codes. Humanitarian aid was introduced by followers of various religons. Every religon has its problems but the selfishness and destructive attitude that seems to follow those people with the least faith in higher powers leads me to believe that faith is a good thing. It makes you hold yourself to a higher standard. This applies to most religons including Muslims, Christian and Buddist.some religons which focus on self over society are bad. There are bad people in churches just like there are anywhere else.

 

"We'll see. I'm 99.99% convinced that the Bush Administration's would-be trophy and overpersonification of terrorism was crushed into irretrievable pulp under a shattered Afghan mountaintop in mid-April, 2002. "

Gotta love B-52s

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wait till they bust out the Enola Gay

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kaBOOM!

 

I'll admit that I've heard Islam kept much learning alive in the dark ages, christianity was one of the primary causes of the dark ages ain't it? I imagine some monasteries kept documents, but when they ran out of paper for writing their useless treatises to god or whatever, they bleached out scientific works and wrote over them. Case in point, a copy of archimedes works (I think) was recently discovered using modern techniques under a copy of some stupid religious claptrap. How many others have been lost. How many works were just burned? How sooner might we have pulled out of the dark ages if the churches would have allowed free thought? Also, their was an informational monopoly in those days. Priests and etc. were almost the only ones who could read. Where else would the documents have been? I've read in some places about how the church didn't want peasants to read because then they could read the bible and realize how many inconsistencies it has. Too bad that logic didn't work out right, we've been reading for a long time now, and the bible is still there

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As to holding yourself to a higher standard, sure this can be seen as a good thing in some ways, but today we hold ourselves to the higher standard of science. It works a lot better. Not many wars based on scientific fundamentalism. Maybe the nazi's but they had a heavy religious influence and used science as icing on the cake.

Usually where the higher standards come in is in judging others, not judging oneself. Any religion based on a one god theory, is inherently aggressive. It denies anyone's faith that doesn't accept their "one" god. Muslims and christians and jews all tend to the politically correct view that they worship the same "one" god. But in their hearts, each of these groups, at least the fundamentalists, believe the others are worshipping false gods, at the least worshipping wrongly which amounts to the same thing. I have contemplated this often. Do humans need gods to define right and wrong? good and evil? If so, then why have these "gods", or rather their human proponents, propagated so many "evil" acts throughout history? Isn't the truth that we as humans "know" right and wrong as an instinct? Except for mentally screwed up people anyway. I've also noticed that most "christians" I've talked to have never read the bible. Most have tried, but gave up before even finishing the pentateuch. How can they claim to be christians when they don't even know what it means? This is certainly not the case for islam as they seem to revel in rote memorization. What a waste of memorization skills. Think what these people could do for science if they devoted that skill to something useful?

I'll agree that religions have done "good" things as well, but I believe that these are far less than the "evil" things they have done. The prime use of religion, other than mind control (which is how those with the least faith and higher powers in your example above use it, and which is how and why it spread so far in the first place, IMO), is a comforting mechanism. "aww, poor baby, everything's going to be ok. Just have faith in god." This attitude of the inherent rightness of one's religion causes people like proud_muslims buddies strap bombs on themselves and commit atrocities. And don't think that christians are off the hook in this regard. The suicide bomber example merely seems to be the most extreme. Christians are merely more adept at hiding their atrocities. Muslims are honest about them.

But enough of that, that's not what this thread is about. I don't think the situation is as simple as leave all mosques alone or burn all mosques or don't have any qualms about attacking mosques if the need should arise. The fact is that a christian country has invaded an islamic country. Should we be offended that they view this as a crusade? Bush called it a crusade when the whole thing started. This is attributable to the fact that we americans are a secular society, and crusade doesn't have the same meaning as it used to. We use it to signify a struggle, a cause, but not necessarily religious. But the real definition stands.

The question is, do we truly intend to free Iraq, allowing Iraqis the freedom to choose their own future? Or do we just want to stabilize the region, i.e. reduce terrorism. If the former, then we should bend to the will of the iraqi people in this regard. If the latter, then destroying mosques would certainly be the worst possible way to stabilize anything. But really, the decision comes down to the insurgents. If they want the mosques to be sancrosanct, then stop drawing fire to them.

 

Not to be repetitive, but it seems to warrant repeating, as it is so widely misunderstood: Resistance fighters want for US forces to attack mosques. They are fighting for the sympathies of the entire Muslim world, which is the real war. Thus far, American leadership and the American public fail to understand the basic nature of the conflict, and as a result, we are losing decisively.

Without the support of Muslim and Arab popular opinion, the United States will be completely incapable of overtly directing the future of Iraq. Because of this critical lack of understanding, the end result of all American sacrifice, and all associated destruction can only be a final political situation that will be inevitably popularly antithetical to anything and everything the US proclaims as objectives: Democracy -> Theocracy; Pro-American -> Anti-American; Unification -> Balkanization. The same principle also applies to the "War on Terror".

This reality trumps all exercise of military superiority save Total War, which both the US public and international community will never support in this case. The Iraq intervention was a failure from the outset because of this critical misunderstanding, and the only issue remaining is how many lives must be sacrificed to delay (but compound) embarrassment for US leadership and their supporters.

 

Absolutely. It's so blatant that you would think nobody would be fooled by it. People using this as an excuse to condemn the US and to decide that this is the time to join the Jihad BECAUSE the US is "attacking" mosques (I quote attacking, because we're really not attacking mosques, but specific insurgent threats that are near or in a mosque), these people need no convincing, they only need an excuse. Just something to think about.

This being said, it would still be wise to minimize all collateral damage, and especially mosques and similar. This leads to the point of najaf. I saw on the news that it's "one of the holiest sites of Islam" (kind of funny how many holiest of sites there are

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), so does the mosque restriction also apply to an entire city?

 

It applies to symbolic cities with almost as much resonance as single mosques, and even to Iraq in its entirety. Because of American hubris and ignorance from the outset, the die is already cast, and US force will continue to be self-defeating for the duration of this struggle to stabilize or pro-Americanize Iraq.

 

Anybody who kills upon holy ground, deserves a fate worse than death. If only I was god, rather than the pussy currently in office. Seriously, doesn't that prove that all these religions are fake to even the craziest of devotees? What kind of god would let people get away with desecrating his own personal shrines, god is dead.

 

Technically, the americans or coalition forces would not be on holy ground. The insurgents attempting to draw fire to the mosque would be. How do you judge them? Are they not at fault for purposefully attempting to draw fire to a mosque? Do they try to draw fire at time that coincides with a gathering of people at the mosque? I don't know about the last question. What I've seen about the mosque that was "attacked", it was prayer time, but the marines had been trying to get some kind of air support for some time before the air force agreed. They could have timed it a bit better. Also they bombed a wall near the mosque, not the mosque itself. This is the only mosque I've heard about in particular in Fallujah. Are there others?

 

Aren't they? I can't recall any specific instances, but I'd think a synagogue (sp?) would be as clear a target for a suicide bomber as a cafeteria. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

miss khan
what is it exactly that prevents any Muslim from setting up a command center inside a mosque or going up on its roof and shooting RPGs from it or using it as a sniper's nest?

was "Muslims just don't do these things" going to be your response?

 

I'd say you can't let them use their religion for war, via buildings or otherwise: jihad? I don't think so. One of my friends is Muslim: whenever I call her house, they answer with something that I can't spell but means peace be with you. Most religions similarly don't advocate war, and I personally believe that the idea to just eradicate religion is ridiculous. There will always be extremists, religious or otherwise, who kill people or try to control them. Look at the main messages of the biggest religions: it's all about peace and love; however corny that sounds, it doesn't inspire me to kill people.
Getting a bit off topic there I guess, but my original response to the question was that it's not about the religion. The building is of some significance - it's likely to have a lot of community importance, and would take money to rebuild: it does have a tangible use, it's not just a symbolic political consideration. However, I do mean 'some' significance. In the end, it's bricks, plaster, wood...human lives are more important.