Violence, anti-Islam and Osama

Perhaps inevitably the number of sites that that are dedicated to proving that Islam is a religion of violence. Were these sites supporting Osama bin Laden I could understand it. Osama needs to convince Muslims that his way of violence is a way of religion and he himself is not just a poor little rich kid with a chip on his shoulder trying to work out his personal problems on a wider stage.

That many Muslims reject Osama I'd have thought can only be a good thing. These anti Muslim sites, however, are determined to prove that those Muslims who reject Osama are wrong. The technique is to quote loads of bits from the Koran that advocate violence – in effect doing Osama’s work for him. The Koran (like the Bible) is riddled with contradictions. A peaceful person will focus on the peaceful bits and those who wish to advocate violence will seek the violent bits. Christians do the same with the Bible.

So why are these supposedly anti-terrorist folk trying so hard to prove that the peaceful Muslims are wrong and the ilk of Osama are right?

On the Austrian moving of the Goal Posts re Turkey.

This is from American Future:

It turns out that the Austrians don’t come off well in regard to the 1915 Armenian massacres, either. The German Reich and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were allied with the Ottoman Empire and fully aware of Turkey’s actions against the Armenian minority. But they didn’t try to stop it.

And from Ireland
In my own humble opinion Europe needs Turkey

And frome One Ring to rule them all...
We must not turn our back on our best Muslim ally

Politics
Turkey
Turkey-EU
European Union

Europe without Turkey aint Europe

Turkey was one of the historical Great Powers of Europe. To write the history of Europe without Turkey would be absurd. A lot of that history has been one of conflict but then the whole European ideal has been as much about remembering past differences to move beyond them.

The irony is that the opponents to Turkey often go on about European values while at the same time displaying a very un-European intolerance.


Politics
Turkey
Turkey-EU
European Union

Sir Ian Blair's letter

"This is clearly a fast-time decision-making process, in which officers cannot risk the kind of containment and negotiation tactics which would normally be the case."

In other words, you kill one possibly innocent person to prevent the possibility that a larger number of innocent people will die.

What Sir Ian Blair is unable to grasp is that most important thing is to prevent people falling into the grip of those who organize terrorist actions. Killing an innocent person and then on top of that refusing to have an independent investigation is the best help the terror recruiters could get.

Sir Ian Blair is incapable of seeing the wider picture - that's why he should resign.

Politics
Police
Sir Ian Blair
Britain