damn glad i was never a runner for you... :D

Agree that is part of the problem in helping to discredit the fundamentalist focus and is a critical means of controlling the message influencing the target groups but the communicators, while critical, are still just one of the players than can help discredit the fundamentalist movement but it is still the movement that must be neutralized if one is to believe that they are in fact attemtping to co-opt the religion from its intended purpose. Just my opinion based on the assumption that what we are seeing here is an internal conflict within Islam for who controls the power and guides the masses in the future.

but for the tacit approval of the various Islamic clergies, OBL and al Zarqawi would be irrelevant...in Iran, the silence of the clergy kept the Shah in power, but the radicalization of the clergy forced him from Teheran and, in no small way, changed the political dynamic in the region...IMNHO,,,

Sorry, just getting caught up on this thread. Maybe you meant AL? You're ahead of me on Qutb; I'm only through 2 chapters of the new O'Neill.

Anyway, I would think the madrassas. And the funding that has multiplied them.

I think the schwerpunkt is the Quran.

perhaps...perhaps it's the interpretation of the Quran as presented at Friday prayers...let's face it...literacy rates aren't all that high in the AOR and in the land of the blind, the clerics are king...i mean, the one-eyed man is king...

doing a bit of cross analysis...does this mean perhaps the schwerpunkt for the Hadjis is the Constitution or the Magna Carta...?

Interesting take.

I would say that it is more the Mullahs who preach the hatred (or peace, as the case may be).

The CoG should be able to be targeted. How would you target the Quran among the target audience who are largely ignorant and unread, outside that very book?

TR

As I stated, some time ago, we need to declare the "Radical Islamists" as a "Radical Islamic State" and take out ANY Mosque/Mullah, ANYWHERE, that "harbors" terrorists/weapons, etc !!! If terrorists are traced to a particular Mosque, that would justify unbridled survelience, and what ever is found would be prosecuted, not in court, but with WAR !!! Declare WAR on the "Radical Islamic State" and give them the justice that they seek !!! Wherever they may attempt to hide.

Remember, Anywhere, Anytime !!!

Warning shots through their temples !!!!

just my .02 !!

Later.
Martin

Agreed. However many of the radical mullahs are also uneducated. I read not long ago of an experiment in which Quranic scholars held discussions with imprisoned tangos on the Quran. Long process, but seems to have worked in an admittedly small test case.

I am thinking Cliff Notes on the Quran, Billy Graham-style tv shows, our own madrasas, etc.


The GSJ's entire jihad is based on their interpretation of the Quran. If we can cut that rug out from under them....

Of course we would need the moderate Muslim community to help in a big way, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

And I think we need to re-think nation-building in Arab Muslim nations.

we need to re-think nation building in Islamic countries, period...

Moslems seems suspicious of the concept of neutrality...they believe politics is a zero-sum game...you are a friend or an enemy...you cannot be neutral...why are you a friend, if you are not family, if you do not share a common belief, if you are not from around here...they seem to accept business relationships, particulary when they are convenient to them, but they are not keen to moving too far from the idyllic era of Mohammed's sixth century...

I win?

not yet...at this moment, i am preparing to refute your agrument and my defense of your argument...like any good POG pogue would...

Of course, but then you have an unfair advantage, you are a medic and you know things :D

Moslems? Or Arabs?

Somalis are not Arabs...they are, however, Moslems...now granted, i have not encountered all permutations of Moslems...only Arabs, Africans, Filipino, those from the Indian Sub-continent, so my experience is not complete...but from what i encoutered down-range, i'd say that Moslems tend to be suspicious of the concept of neutrality...and there is, among those closer to Mecca, a definate affinity for the halcyon days of the seventh century...