Hi Lego,

In what way are all Muslim countries medieval? Even though Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE - practice some of the most fundamentalist forms of Islam, even you would have to admit they are very modern as far as urban architecture goes. Dubai, Abu Dhabi,Doha are all stunning ultra-modern cities that could rival places like London, New York and Tokyo.

Places like Iraq and Libya used to be very wealthy and were more secular - they were places where women had rights, infant mortality was low, and where education rates were very high before we bombed them, now they are failed states. So now they are looking more medieval, but that isn't their fault - we've bombed them into the middle ages.

Some Muslim countries are very poor - no question, but not all poor countries are Muslim.
5 poorest countries
The Congo - 90% Christian
Zimbabwe - 80% Christian
Burudi - 80-90% Christian
Liberia - 85% Christian
Eritrea - 50% Muslim, 50% Christian

5 Richest Countries
Qatar - 67% Muslim
Luxemborg - 80% Christian
Singapore - 33% Buddhist
Norway - 85% Christian
Brunei - Muslim

I think you can see being a Muslim country doesn't mean they are the most backward at least in terms of GDP.

When you come back at me with a post like that, BJelly, I have to ask myself is, "Is BJelly dumb? Or is he being devious.?" I think it is a bit of both.

You know I am not talking about bloody architecture. And you know that the only reason why some Muslim countries are prosperous is because they are floating on an ocean of oil. Socially, their cultural practices are medieval with almost no regard whatsoever for your precious Human Rights. Only one is a democracy, three other "democracies" (Malaysia, Egypt and Turkey) are reverting to type, with either dictators or military juntas running the place.

Now, I will see if I can break through your incredible mindset with a bit of logic.

How is it that you can understand that Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen are people that you think are dangerous and despicable, because they hold beliefs that you find objectionable, yet you give Muslims a free pass? Does your mind just register Muslims as a "religion" and "minorities", your brain shorts out your critical analysis circuit, and you judge Muslims by a different standard to Nazis and Klansmen?

If you think that the majority of Muslims are nice people and it is just a few hotheads that give all Muslims a bad name, do you judge Nazis and Klansmen by the same standard? After all, very few Germans were involved in putting millions into gas chambers, most of them just yelled "Sieg Heil" and supported Hitler. At one time, two million US citizens were members of the Ku Klux Klan, but only a very tiny minority were involved in lynching's, bombings, and the burning of negro churches.

I find it incredible that a person like yourself refuses to see the danger in a religion which openly preaches violence in it's own holy book, and who's own God commands the murder of non members, homosexuals, apostates, and anybody who dares to criticise their religion

Hi Lego,
Because I don't go looking for the absolute worst in the religion and say that is what all Muslims really believe like you do.

I look at history and see that Muslims have mostly lived in peace with others.

Don't get me wrong I think we must stop Wahabism - that is the type of Islam you and I both fear. It is the one that likes to chop people's heads off, impose Sharia law and dominate non-Muslim countries. But I don't go about presuming that is the version of Islam practiced in most Muslim countries because it isn't.

Many Muslim leaders do their best to keep those nutjobs out of their countries.

Unfortunately our leaders have been turning a blind eye to this particularly nasty version of Islam that radicalises moderate Muslims because those that spread it are

a) sitting on the world's biggest oil reserves and they are in no hurry to move away from oil as many are in the oil industry (Bush familiy, Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum) - that suits them just fine. Money is more important to them.

b) Having these crazy Islamists is quite handy when you want to distabilize an area that has resisted opening their economies to the West. People don't matter - money does. See Operation Condor.

c) Having a bogeyman is quite handy if you want to control your population - add a bit of fear and hate - divide and conquer is an old tactic - this democracy thing is getting a bit tiresome. The war on terror has given so called liberal democracies across the globe the opportunity to bring in draconian laws that severely restrict our rights and freedoms. Australia and many other western democracies are now turnkey totalitarian states. We have turned our backs on our own so called values with barely a whimper. People don't matter, power over them does.

My bad, I meant to say Operation Cyclone - the one where the CIA funded the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in the 1980s

Here's a clip of Zbiginiew Brzezinski giving a pep talk to the Mujaheddin in the late 1970s - he wanted to arm them in secret without revealing America's role. Also includes a pic of him with Osama Bin Laden in the good old days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJTv2nFjMBk

It is so awkward when the West's old buddies like Bin Laden in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein who they helped get chemical weapons to fight the Iranians, keep going rogue.

"The CIA had already warned that Iraq was using chemical weapons almost daily. But Mr Rumsfeld, at the time a successful executive in the pharmaceuticals industry, still made it possible for Saddam to buy supplies from American firms."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html

Honestly it is so bad, it is hard to believe it, but it's from their own declassified documents.

Operation Condor was the CIA backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America.

While I'm here I'll add a bit I found about Iraqi's comparing Iraq before and after the War.
http://www.quora.com/Iraq/Is-Iraq-a-better-place-or-worse-to-live-since-the-fall-of-Saddam-Hussein
It might help explain why so many Iraqis became refugees after we "liberated" them.

Before you think I'm anti American - I am not. I love American culture and it's people. It is the hypocrisy and mendacity of the US government I dislike. The US is no longer a democratic republic, it is an oligarchy.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/21/americas-oligarchy-not-democracy-or-republic-unive/

To BJelly

According to your history books, "Muslims have mostly lived in peace with others."

You have obviously never picked up a history book in your life. Where do you get your info? The Green/Left Weekly?

Hi Lego - yeah I could have said that better - Muslims, have killed millions of people, but so have Christians and Atheists. Muslims certainly aren't any more warlike than anyone else.