The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, recently issued a decree to its supporters: Kill at least one American in the next two weeks "using a sniper rifle, explosive or whatever the battle may require."

Well, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, I am an American too. Count me as the one of those you have asked your supporters to kill.

I am not alone, there are thousands of Muslims with me in Las Vegas, and many more millions in America, who are proud Americans and who are ready to face your challenge. You hide in your caves and behind the faces of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. You don't show your faces and you have no guts to face Muslims. You thrive on the misery of thousands of Muslim youth and children who are victims of despotism, poverty and ignorance.

During the past two decades, you have brought nothing but shame and disaster to your religion and your world.

You said you "invite you not to drop your weapons, and don't let your souls or your enemies rest until each one of you kills at least one American within a period that does not exceed 15 days with a sniper's gunshot or incendiary devices or Molotov cocktail or a suicide car bomb -- whatever the battle may require." I invite you to surrender, to seek forgiveness from God almighty for the senseless killing you and your supporters are involved in and repent for everything you have done.

You say that the word of God is the highest. Yes, it is. But you are not worthy of it. You have abandoned God and you have started worshipping your own satanic egos that rejoice at the killing of innocent people. You don't represent Muslims or, for that matter, any decent human being who believes in the sanctity of life. Many among us American Muslims have differences with our administration on domestic and foreign issues, just like many other Americans do. But the plurality of opinions does not mean that we deprive ourselves of the civility that God demands from us. America is our home and will always be our home. Its interests are ours, and its people are ours. When you talk of killing of Americans, you first have to kill 6 million or so Muslims who will stand for every American's right to live and enjoy the life as commanded by God.

By growing a beard, shouting some religious slogans and misquoting and misusing some verses of the divine scriptures, you cannot incite Muslims to do things that are contrary to our religion. Yes, you even fail to understand the basic Islamic principles of life and living. Islam demands peace in all aspects of life, Islam demands respect for life. Islam demands justice.

What you are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, India or other parts of the world is anti-human and anti-divine. You are an enemy of Islam as much as you are an enemy of America. You must understand that God who entrusted you with life is the same God who spelled his spirit in every human being regardless of his or her religion or ethnicity or nationality or status. You are violating him.

We feel totally disgusted with your action and we condemn you without any reservation. Don't come to our mosques to preach this hatred. Don't visit our Islamic centers to spill the blood of innocents. Don't think that just because we share the same religion, we would show some sympathy to you. You are not of us. You don't belong to the religion whose followers are trying to live a peaceful life for themselves and others serving the divine according to their understanding. In our understanding of faith, you appear as anti-divine and anti-human. We reject you now as we rejected you yesterday.

There is nothing common between you and us.

We stand for life, you want to destroy it.

We accept the divine scheme of diversity in the world and you want to impose conformity.

We respect every human being simply because he or she is a creation of the divine, and you hate people based on their religion and ethnicity.

We support freedom and liberty and justice, and you promote bigotry, murder and strangulation.

You will never be able to find a sympathetic voice amidst us. Our differences with others will never lead us to do things that are fundamentally wrong in our faith, i. e. taking the lives of innocent people and killing others because they are different.

So on Sept. 11, when you will be hiding in your caves, we will be out in the streets paying tribute to those who you killed because you failed to see the beauty of life. We will condemn you once again the same way we have been doing ever since 9/11 because we are Muslim Americans.

very good post. telling that no one sees fit to comment.

This is one of the most powerful columns ever written. As an American, I salute you for your courage.

We, as non-Muslims and Americans, should know that the radical fringe that perverts the message of love and life does not define Islam. All too often, however, the mainstream media gives no outlet for the message that you off to us here...and that is a shame and an injustice.

Thank you for these words.

I think you're entirely missing the point. They view Muslims living in any country (especially the US) that adopt a "corrupt" liberal lifestyle to not be true Muslims and thus not worthy of life. They believe a liberal lifestyle is the root of all that is wrong with society, in much the same way the Nazi party saw the Jews. Neo-conservatives also have the same sentiment, though their means of changing society is not through attacking their own people, rather turning people against each other and taking away their freedoms.

you write well. Those who call for the death of others are truly afraid of living and life.

very good post. telling that no one sees fit to comment.

maybe it's because it speaks for itself, and that nobody disagrees with it?

[SPLIT INTO 2 PARTS BECAUSE OF 2500 CHARACTER LIMIT, PLEASE READ BOTH AND CONSIDER AS ONE POST. THANK YOU]

I agree with you that life should be respected regardless of ethnicity or beliefs. I have no problem with your desire to be spiritual and happy and for there to be less suffering in the world. I think you will listen to my opinion with an open mind.

I do not respect what Muslims, Christians, Jews, or Sikhs believe about god. All believe in contradicting dogma. None has a shred of evidence to support those beliefs.

I do not believe things without evidence because it has proven to be the most successful strategy in every area of my life.
Therefore, I firmly believe that what all people of faith believe about god and about what god wants to happen on earth is ridiculous. Unless I see proof that can be independently tested I will believe this until I die. These faiths have persisted for thousands of years and there has yet to be proof, and they are such an effective tool for coercion. I doubt that any proof is forthcoming.

Now that you know where I stand I have some questions.

Will I go to the same heaven and live with god in the same paradise as you when this life is over? If yes, then what is the point of having faith? If no, how can you possibly respect me if I am just a fool, doomed for all eternity? If your answer is no, as I suspect it is, no matter what I do with my life, I must be as pathetic as a 50 year old homeless heroin addict to you. Yes or no, you are either choosing to discard parts of your divine scripture, or you are paying lip service to respecting me as an equal because it is politically convenient for you at this time.

[CONTINUED]

I'm tired of shutting up about peoples unreasonable beliefs. My tolerance for your faith ends where it hurts people. And the mere belief that a man knows, without any falsifiable evidence, the divine will of god gets innocent human beings BRUTALLY killed every single day. You, and every other person of faith directly support people like bin laden. If it weren't for all the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, etc who believe different variations of the same myth, bin laden (and his Christian, Jew, etc equivalents) would have no support. It is unlikely they would even exist.

Do you respect my life because I am human and I want to be happy and free from suffering? Do you respect it because you have no power and you fear for your own well being? Or some other reason? Why? It matters.

Do you honestly believe that Christians and Jews are EVER going to respect you for any reason other than FEAR?

Stopping the violence is good. If you want to moderate your beliefs to get a ceasefire, great.. If doing so gives some poor, innocent child even one more day on this earth before the forces of blind faith tear his body to pieces I'm for it.

To me appeals like yours are hollow. Most everyone else probably thinks so too, but won't admit it. It isn't polite to attack the faith of someone who says he's willing to die with you. So judge them by how they treat Muslims not by what they say. And realize that the root cause of of their vile actions is their faith, and the faith in you is made of the same stuff.

>>If no, how can you possibly respect me if I am just a fool, doomed for all eternity?

Because, you are just as much a person as I am. I respect your right to believe as you might, and the Islam I know teaches me that I should not fear your choices, no matter what they result in: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Budhhism, Deism, Atheism, etc.

>>you are either choosing to discard parts of your divine scripture

I don't this is so. "To me my way of life and to you yours.", "do not make fun of other people's ways of life, lest they make fun of yours." Sure, you can find others which contradict them, but I firmly beleive that thier context is when someone tries to force me to worship what I do not want to worship or otherwise forbids me my freedom of religion. But, no, not all Muslims see it this way especially the political types who think everyone who does not beleive as they do oppose thier agenda. That only illustrates the danger of taking Islam as one's identity, that it, taking it as what a person *is* rather than what they do or beleive in. And don't look to me to patronize you; I'm sure you got good reason to reject the supernatural as much as I have my personal reasons to accept faith. Why does it have to be one or the other??

skeptic,

umm, that's why it's called "faith" as opposed to "fact." what you choose to respect is up to you.

OmarG,

I like your quotes. They are different wordings of a stategy that anyone can use in the natural world. We can test it on real people and see the result. I have, and I'm sure you have too. The strategy yeilds better results than its opposite in nearly every circumstance I've tested. We can even test for circumstances where it doesn't work. No one has to believe anything supernatural to accept it. These are facts! The scripture of all major religions are brimming with facts. Many of them are even deeply insightful and beautifully worded.

You ask a GREAT question: Why is it bad for you to believe in the supernatural and for me not to? Beliefs are what drive action.

http://www.hti.umich.edu/k/koran/

Take The Koran: (2:126) God brutally disposing of disbelievers. That is, anyone who believes what I do. It is logical to assume that if you believe this is true, you believe

a) God exists
b) He is going to let me live for a while
c) He is going to see to it that I suffer
d) He is going to see to it that I die
e) Then, God is going to make me suffer FOREVER.

So if you came over here and shot me right now, why would that be so bad? Infact, you would be helping Gods work towards b) and c). God already decided ahead of time to create me as an unbeliever anyway. (2:7) According to Him nothing you could say can save me (2:6), so there is no logical reason why you should feel guilty about hurting me.

How can someone both respect me because I am an equal person and believe that God is going to destroy me, and believe that God is all knowing and powerful all at the same time?

Bad translation/interpretation?

I'm asking you straight, do you belive God is going to do this to me?

If so, that's why our beliefs cannot coexist and more than unsupervised 4 year-olds can coexist with loaded handguns. If you don't then you don't believe the Koran is the word of God and we have no problem. We can reason with eachother and it is logically possible for you to respect my life.

If you just believe that there is some supernatural all knowing creator (Lets call it "GGG") I can live with that... it is when you believe that GGG has directly communicated with a person that you are going to have irreconcilable differences with every single person who believes otherwise. So it is not the belief in God per se that causes the problem, but it directly underpins the problem.

skeptic,

you could ask the same question of christians. the fallacy in your question is the assumption that a muslim is going to take it upon himself of the kill you in order to do the "will of God" when no one knows what this will is.

even assuming arguendo that a belief in God and a lack of belief cannot coexist, how is it that so few people are being killed because of it? given the multiplicity of belief systems in existence might not one expect a near orgy of continuous violence around the globe on the basis of faith alone?

what you are in fact asking omarg to prove is a negative. which is impossible to do. he cant prove to you that some nutcase isn't going to kill you because he think he's doing God's will.

Stop branding them nutcases. That just works to their advantage. Their issue is one of ideology, on the extreme spectrum. And sadly, they're not alone. There are currently several extreme ideologists in a position of power in the world, as there have always been. When we have too many pieces falling together in place, we get this global calamity. Its cyclical.

they are nutcases. full stop. there are no extreme ideologies in any postion of power anywhere in the world. if there were you wouldn't need suicide bombers.

their currency is fear and intimidation, coupled with a healthy dose of willfull ignorance. they feed on a culture that encourages rote thinking and group think. but make no mistake about it, any person who claims as an objective the reestablishment of an "Islamic Caliphate" in 2006 is at best a nutcase. The same as any person whose desired goal would be to reestablish the Roman empire. Both ideas are crackpot.

As you have highlighted, the real enemy is extreme ideology. Branding anyone that follows any such ideology a nutcase is overtly simplistic and accomplishes nothing. The only way forward is education. Something the general American public so desperately needs. I'd suggest a look at the last 80 years of foreign policy, government structures, and the state of societies around the world a good starting point.

People must understand that simplistically branding something good or evil is no better than what the people they despise are doing.

"their currency is fear and intimidation, coupled with a healthy dose of willfull ignorance. they feed on a culture that encourages rote thinking and group think"

Did it ever strike you this is an accurate description of the current US administration?

bread,

if you cannot call someone who wants to take you and everyone you know to the 7th century a nutcase, then i suggest the word has no meaning.

this much is true: the logical outgrowth 80 years of foreign policy is not a return to 7th century. any number of groups of suffer from the same foreign policy.

bread,

the current administration can be voted out. please tell me, when are the next round for the election of the nutcases you admire? next november?

this administration is a joke. sure. so are the nutcases. but as bad as the "west" is, i can sit here all day and work toward their removal. were any of us to do the same under a regime supported by the nutcases we would be imprisoned at best, killed outright at most.

I appreciate that to you it must be hard to remove yourself emotionally from the situation and be able to look at it objectively.

Statements accusing me of admiring nutcases has the same effect of calling anyone that disapproves with the government a terrorist.

I recommend you watch a three part BBC series called The Power of Nightmares by Adam Curtis aired in late 2004. It applies more now than it ever did when it first aired. You can watch it at:

http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

This series looks into the foundations of Neo-Conservatism and radical Islamists and how they changed the world we live in now.

If you'd like to read up on the series, a very good description of it can be found in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_nightmares

If you do get around to watching it, I'd be very interested in hearing your opinions on it and if it has changed the way you think about the terrorist threat.

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