It would be wonderful to see that, but the problem you have reconciling here is that we are not at war with "moderate Islam".
I just wanted to remind you of that fact, because I had the impression you have forgotten that.
However, moderate muslims that you speak of are NOT policing their own with any regularity, or success at all. My opinion is that if the west were to see that ME, and N. African governments were to step up and truly crack down on the use of terrorism then they would see greater cooperation from the west. However, as long as the governments of the Islamic countries of the ME continue to grant the people harbor, with a wink and a nod toward agitating the west, all they would and should see is the point of a swine dipped sword tip.
Again, I would propose a little more nuance here. The different governments in the ME are very different, both when it comes to their allegiance to Islam and their attitude towards the West. And these countries have very different states of development too.
For example, you have Iran, an anti-Western Shia theocracy which supports islamist terrorists in other countries too and actively fights against the West -- although much of the population has grown tired of the theocratic government and many of which hold surprisingly pro-Western opinions. The main problem here is the regime.
You have a Sunni theocracy that even more murderous and oppressive towards its own population, Saudi Arabia, which is allied with the West and its government more or less respects its treaties with us -- although most of the 9/11 terrorists came from there.
You have Syria, whose government is not particularly religious, but is allied with Iran obstructing the West and supports islamist radicals as useful idiots.
You have Pakistan, which is not Arab, has even some degree of democracy, but a very rallied up islamist population that increasingly forces the government to take anti-Western stances -- here, the anti-Western push comes more from the people than from the government.
You have Turkey, which is a working democracy and closely allied with the West, even member of NATO. Its secular state may be slowly eroded by the moderate islamists, but the level of development is rather high and it will hardly ever become an anti-Western theocracy any time soon.
And then, you have Egypt: Mubarak was a secular dictator who respected the treaties with the West and Israel, and now, as more democracy evolves, you see a surge from the islamist population. Yet the level of development is relatively high, and it has a good degree of a state of law, which still goes back to Mubarak's regime. It's far from becoming a new Saudi Arabia or Iran anytime soon, as far as I can see. It turns more religious, more conservative and illiberal, true, but I don't doubt it's still illegal in Egypt to murder Christians. It's not a theocracy or tyranny. When such acts are not officially prosecuted, it probably has less to do with the law, but more with chaos and/or corruption.
The extremist Salafists have taken inroads to Egypt, have won 15% of the vote, but they are even too radical for the taste of the already conservative Muslim Brotherhood (which has moderated a lot since the Arab Spring, to meet support by the population -- all relative, of course).
Much of what we see here is not a simple of "barbarian Muslim fanatics against the West" -- much has to do with dirty political power play. Some leaders abuse religious fanatics as pawns, as "useful idiots" to make their game. Some even rally them up. Sometimes, we're dealing with a deeply religious leadership that has to deal with an oppressed population that disagrees with them.
You have individual radical clerics who rally up the population, and relatively "moderate" clerics doing the opposite.
There are enough Muslims and Muslim leaders willing to talk with us, and listening to us, with whom you can reason. You just have to know where to find them.
Can you point to other examples in modern times where insults to a religion that is not Islam is prosecuted? And the 'insult' is in the eye of the beholder is it not? Renting and burning a bible is an insult, but burning a church, and killing its worshipers is not? give me a break.
I am 100% sure that murder and burning churches is illegal in Egypt. Apparently, insulting Christianity is too.
When it's not always prosecuted, it has to do with flaws in the legal system, double standards on the side of the Muslim authorities, corruption and general chaos. Maybe some officials have sympathies for radical islamists and turn a blind eye. That's bad enough. But it's not official policy or even legal in Egypt to burn churches and murder Christians.
What's this? A new spin on the old "I can't be racist because I have black friends"??? How embarrassing for you.
No. You said how "the Muslims" allegedly are. I pointed you to examples of Muslims I know first hand to prove you wrong.
Sure, you talk to who you can, and destroy who you can't before they destroy you. The art in this is accurately assessing whom those so called non fanatics are, and what they can offer.
Agreed.
This Presidents problem is that he seems to believe that when radicals are offended, and lash out that he needs to appease them to calm the situation down like a hostage. That approach in history has been proven to fail.
I disagree. Even many of the peaceful Muslims we need were offended by that movie, or caricatures and whatnot -- even when they wouldn't become violent themselves. Say they are blinded by the radical's propaganda: Many Muslims, even the less extreme, get the impression the West is not just after the radicals, but hates and disregards Islam, which they hold dear, in general. For cultural reasons, they don't understand either what free speech exactly means. Burning Quran or defaming Mohammed is like burning the Constitution or the flag for many Americans, even worse. Again: Even for many of those Muslims who wouldn't use violence.
I think it's in the best interest of the West to make clear to these Muslims that we don't simply hate them all, and that our efforts are not a crusade to destroy Islam, but that we are after those who really make trouble. When such an approach, like that Obama ad campaign you mentioned, managed to keep a handful of Muslims from siding with the radicals (who abuse any excuse they can to spread their propaganda), it has already been a good service for our Western interests.
No one said they were, but,....BUT, continued muted response from within the Islamic community as a whole is not helping restore any peace, in fact the ME is becoming more radicalized, and Presidents like Obama see the rise of the MB, an open terror organization with a goal of driving out Israel just like the Hezi's in Palestine, a good thing. It is not.
Did you even look closely what the "Islamic community as a whole" did and does? I remember that after 9/11, many Muslim organizations were among the first to condemn the attack. Even crazy old Arafat was among them. The Muslim organizations in Germany always issue statements of condemnation when there were further islamist attacks.
The problem is, in this climate of a culture war not few want to wage on both sides, nobody cares for those Muslim, nobody listens to them and most people don't even know they are there.
