Yes Islam has it lunatic fringe dwellers but so have the Jews and Christians.

The object of demonising the Muslims was to justify the theft of their oil and resources.That is the truth and reality.There is now absolute scientific proof that the Muslims did not do 911.http://www.ae911truth.org/

Arjay, you got one thing wrong, the US did not invade Iraq for the oil
as they only import a very small percentage of oil from the middle east.
Bet you didn't know that did you ?

Marilyn, it seems you are unaware that the Taliban trained the Bali
bombers in Afghanistan.

We have a threat, not from any particular religion, but from intolerance. On a visit to Istanbul, I noticed that the Hagia Sophia and Sultan Ahmed Complex looked very similar: http://www.tomw.net.au/travel/istanbul.shtml

These places of worship were built for different religions, but they look very similar, being a product of the same place and similar culture and time. In the same way, a group will take a religious text and interpret it to suit their current need. We should not confuse the violent means which some groups practice to further their aims, with a religion they may profess. If we respond by attempting to suppress a particular religion, that will simply play into the hands of such violent groups. A better response is to target the violent groups, while supporting more tolerant forms of religious expression.

I do wish that we could finish one job before starting on another one.
First it was to invade Afghanistan, then before that job was finished it was to invade Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction. If we do not find these weapons soon maybe the bad guys will find them and use them. What is the problem? Have we been torturing the wrong people to find the weapons? It is important to find the weapons otherwise we have the problem of justifying the killing of a few hundred thousand Iraqis.
We know the weapons must be there because the US president (the one who was given a standing ovation after addressing the joint houses of the Australian parliament) told us they were there.

The New York Times quotes senior officials of the CIA and Mossad as having doubts as to the possibility of Iran trying to make nuclear weapons. Of course newspapers and top security officials can be wrong.
I would urge Des Moore to take his information to ASIO so they can send it on to the CIA and so save us all.

Lots pf interesting comments; some even manage to stay on topic.

The topic is the increasing threat from Ismam. As Geert Wilders points out and as the Q Society shows concern, Islam is a problem. It is a religio-political totalitarian system, which relies on violence in gaining and holding on to power. Power goes to Muslims who are regarded as the master "race" just like the Nazis regarded the "Aryans" as the master race. And in Muslim societies, power holders use violence to suppress power challengers, a trend identified years ago by Price-Jones. Terror is also a tactic endorsed by the founder of the faith; read the Koran. A nuclear weapon in the hands of jihadis would endanger the whole world, especially when such people regard anyone less fanatical than they are as a heretic, hence lawfully killable.

Islam is against Western values of the freedoms conscience, speech, press and the rule of law plus the rule of the majority. The "fringe" in Islam is far larger than in other religious groups and uses violence to gain power. It demands the subject status of non-Muslims and the second rate status of women. We all have good Muslim friends, but they are not much good socially because they fail to speak out publicly against the extermists in their midst as do members of other groups.

Paul2
I thought that for the past 500 years or more it has been the white Christians who have attempted to rule the world by violence. Spain and Portugal invaded south america. Britain etc invaded North america, all the European powers invaded Africa, Britain invaded India, France invaded indo china, the Spanish invaded the Philippines, the Dutch took over some of the East Indies, the Germans too over Papua and some of the other islands, Britain took over Australia and New Zealand. Not any Muslim countries in this lot.