Regrettably, it is, in numerous parts of the Quran. The write-up of such ayah is sufficiently loose that they can be used as easily for offense as well as defense. Or else, why are non-muslims marginalized in every single islamic nation? Why does God need such physical protection? Internationally, yes. This is a mere accident of history and development. In other centuries, it was the islamic world fighting wars and occupying other people's nations. Domestically, the suppression of the dhimmi continues at the same intermittent pace. You claim not to be in the business of "he started it", but this is what your comment amounts to. "It wouldn't have happened unless". Wouldn't it? Van Gogh and creeping islamicization in the West is as much a matter of faith as colonialism.
And Muslims. Or, did you conveniently forget that? So, you invoke a childish schoolyard argument? And, then you place blame for a heinous act of religious zealotry on that which is the crux of such an argument?
So why are you bitching about the Israeli's attacking Gaza? Your arguement is that if someone punches you once, you punch back once, they punch twice, you punch twice. As far as were concerned, Israel hasnt even finished the first punch. As far as your "holy book goes" it justifies Israel attacking Gaza. You can't blame Israel for being a hell of a lot more accurate though.
Kashmir. Afghanistan. Sudan. Not very many. Not sure about the whole Nigerian thing. The East Timor slaughter is over, apparently. Haven't heard much from other Indonesian or Philippine areas. Things do seem to have calmed down a bit on the borders of Islamic States, compared with a few years ago.
Pakistani tribesmen and soldiers in Afghanistan and Kashmir, Chad tribesmen doing some ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims in the Sudan. But your point is taken: the Muslim incursions and so forth of the past half century have hit a lull. Let us hope it is long lasting.
The Taliban is the child of Pakistan's ISI. It was Pakistan's rationale for the eventual annexation of Afghanistan by a sympathetic Muslim creed. How many Western armies have tried (and failed throughout history) to do the same thing? Religion triumphs over politics, every time. Even when the brand of religion is only 'loosely' connected to an established one - like say, Christianity or Judaism, or the other one, oh right, Islam. If you've ever read the Rubayyat, a lot of Shakespeare's writings appear several centuries before he lived?? What could this mean, and what does an Elizabethan playwright have to do with Islam, or Holy War? Have you read Richard III?
Actually, I haven't read Richard III, though I know the history. Little princes full of holes. If you want a Qayyam expert, you'd have to ask my old man. Knows the Rubiyat by heart. A jug of wine and thou were Heaven enow. Etc. (Don't quote me; that's memory from his prattling.) Annexation? They seem a bit slow about it. Could be, I suppose.
I think the North American Indians could teach the Muslims a thing or two about fighting eviction. First you fight using weapons akin to a peashooter versus an aircraft carrier. (Muslims are at this stage right now) You then lose people and land but enough of you survive, gain public sympathy and are placed on reservations. Meanwhile all the treaties you signed with the whiteman are sitting in an old annex in some government building collecting dust. Eventually you pretend to become assimilated into the new culture, acquire an education and begin to examine those old treaties when the political climate is in your favor. That's when you find out you actually own a lot of land that developers and industrialists are camped on. Without firing a shot, you go to court and win huge cash settlements. Then you dust off another old treaty and do it all over again. Remember you're aboriginal, remind the gov't constantly of this and you can attain revenge without paying a cent of tax. Your conquerors foot the bill! Muslims, listen closely......lay down your weapons...its the first step to true vengeance and a peace fraught with riches. Use the paper the rules of war are written on to wipe your ass with, for that is the value of that parchment.
What would the IDF do, if Hamas abdicated, leaving Gaza with no "legitimate" government? Would they then bomb a population that was 100% civilian (apart from the few who saw retaliation as an option)? Would the IDF then need a different set of reasons to deny Gazans a meaningful existence, by destroying any industry, any agriculture, and leveling whole blocks of houses (which strategy is well-known as an urban destabiliser, since it makes all the adjoining blocks into islands, or, it creates large discontinuities in any social structure, which in a city depends on contiguous blocks of housing)? Israel's bombing campaign must have been carefully planned well before it was prosecuted. There is no industrial area left to speak of, whole orchards have been destroyed, livelihoods ruined. It looks a lot like a plan to deny them any resources (you know, food, electricity, working sewers, hospitals, schools, etc, etc). "kill them where you find them, deny them access to any holy places..."
This thread could drive me bonkers, which is my fault because I actually bothered to read all the posts because I'm self-destructive. You can't assign blame at this point anymore, you simply can't. There has been wrong-doing on all sides, therefore looking at the past to try to figure out how to solve our current problems is a waste of time. I haven't read a lot about the Quran or the Bible, but what I do know is that not all Christians believe in every word of the bible, and of among the one's that do, not all of them interpret the bible the same, which has resulted in the different denominations based around the same holy text. I would like to assume that the Quran is the same way. If all Muslims wanted to kill all infidels based on what they were taught in the Quran, then we would have a hell of a lot more problems in the world today as a result. A 2005 Demographic of religions around the world said that over 20% of the total population is Muslim, that's over 1.3 Billion people. So yeah you could lump all Muslims together with the few that blow themselves up, but that's not a very convincing argument to me at all. This is true the other way around as well, it's all worthless. It's not ok to kill innocent people, in any situation, EVER. But how do you define innocent? Just because someone sitting down in Texas didn't do the killing himself in Iraq, but he supported Bush and his policies, he's just as guilty as Bush. I don't know how accurate this number is, but one website that I read said that we have killed over 100,000 innocent civilians in Iraq. Not ok, even if our intentions were good. All of you guys can talk about the history of all the fighting between different cultures, countries, and all of that, but looking at the past is only going to bring more bad memories into the situation and will not fix anything. This is partially why I like Obama so much, he sees through all this stupid crap and that yes, we all have common goals, which is the well being of our friends, family and ourselves. I have confidence he will get a lot of problems resolved or will at least start to resolve some of the problems of today. P.S. As far as Rules for War being in the Quran, even though that may not be something you'd expect to see in a "Holy" text, I would say that's practical and makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.
...or Israel could back off the West Bank and see what happens. Well. I mean, I can guess. But in that case, it seems the best thing to do anyway.
Or Hamas could offer to shake hands, either way.... Its more than that. Hate & rules of war are a bad combination. It will take guts(no pun intended) for some high ranking Islamic official to say that the quran's rules of war are worthless, outdated & certainly not to be associated with a religion of peace.
That will happen the same day you see your kid getting punched by a bully and tell him its not okay to fight back, cos its not peaceful enough for you and might induce him to go around killing people
Muslims have occupied their conquered nations for centuries. Muhammad created a perfect "Catch 22" scenario when he made Islam impervious to assault by condoning murder and war if anyone tried to "fight" Islam. With that wonderful contention in hand, he and his armies were perfectly justified in offering Islam and killing anyone who didn't accept it.
