Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

ISIS has been designated as a foreign terrorist
organisation in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Indonesia and
Saudi Arabia and has also been described by the
UN's and the Western and Middle Eastern media as
a terrorist group and as a fundamentalist and
extremist organisation.

Much of their murderous rampage has parallels with
mediaeval horrors and it is quite difficult to
imagine a strategy that would be effective against
individuals so depraved.

This is one of the most complex regions in the world,
with the instability of Iraq and the dark consequences
of Syria's civil war.

However lumping this terrorist organisation with the
Muslim religion smacks of a narrow set of attitudes.
Muslims are not one homogenous group. And blaming any
religion for the actions of fundamentalists and
extremists is not an intelligent argument - even
though it seems to have become a dreary and undeviating
routine on this forum of late.

Foxy,

The "Muslim Manifesto" is the Koran, and in it Allah through his final prophet, Muhammad, has told the world how it should behave and believe; if you do not follow Allah's will then you can and ought to be persecuted and, if possible, eradicated.
The recent be-headings are only examples of devout Muslims following the will of Allah.

Foxy my darling,

Good to hear from you !

Forgive me, but if ISIL goes into 'battle' (i.e. beheading children), under a flag which says in Arabic "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet", and the killers yell out "Allah is Great !" when they kill someone, being old and mentally decrepit, I leap to the hasty conclusion that they may be Muslim, at least in their own minds.

When they cite the Koran, the book of Islam, I have this totally unfounded notion, I don't know where from, that they might be Muslims, at least as they see it.

When they implement Shari'a law, as ordained by many kadis and imams and Muslim authorities around the world, albeit in perhaps a fairly drastic form, then I suppose it's natural for me to fall into the error of thinking that they may be Muslims. I don't know why but there you go.

Perhaps, like most 'holy' books, there are good patches and brutal, vicious, vile patches. Perhaps good Muslims focus on the good parts, while 'mistaken' Muslims, or people who are not actually Muslims at all, focus on other parts the books.

After all, Islam is a religion of peace. Apart from the beheadings :)

And the torture and murder of women who are civil rights lawyers.

Love,

Joe

Hi there JOE aka LOUDMOUTH...

It's wrong to lump these murderous ISIL terrorists amongst the ranks of ordinary peaceful Muslims. Is It ? At the risk of me being accused as having a narrow set of attitudes, I would respectfully submit that every second word that emerges from the mouths of these creatures, contain some reference to Allah, Sharia law or Islamic canonical precepts. So how can they be marginalised or segregated from Islam ?

There's no doubt there are many peaceful Muslim folk living quietly all around the world, and I would think they have little truck with ISIL or anyone else identifying with ISIL. Nevertheless, the Islamic faith is at the root of all ISIL ideology and doctrinal teachings, as such it's up to the Muslim community themselves, to at least assist in bringing these murderers to account.

Otherwise, the complete Muslim world will be (regrettably) identified as being sympathetic to, and to provide succour to this, and any other terrorist groups, that purport to act pursuant to the Doctrines of the entire Islamic religion.

Rightly or wrongly that would be a real perversion, in all attempts of maintaining an enduring world peace, certainly throughout the very unsettled regions of the Middle East.

Hi O Sung Wu,

Yes, I agree: but like every holy book, perhaps the Koran contains contradictory passages (to say the least). Far from being the actual word of god, some of it was written - like all holy books - much later than the time of Muhammad, and even the parts inspired by Muhammad differed according to when he wrote it (oops, when he 'received' it).

So that the early bits, when he had little power, are conciliatory, peaceable and more acceptable, while the later bits, when he and his successors were rampaging through the entire Middle East, contain elements of violence and butchery.

I wonder where the bits about 'tekkiah', that it's right to lie and cheat when you have to, with un-believers, come in ?

Joe

Come now, boys....take a breather from walking in lock-step with govt's nasty Islam agenda.

We've got our own trainee despot doing deals with a former Khmer Rouge leader...he even sips champagne with him after completing his grrrrubby deal.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/a-toast-to-scott-morrison-for-paying-a-war-criminal-40-million-to-house-refugees-in-abject-poverty-20140928-10n7uh.html

"Hun Sen, this is your life!

Let's have a little chat about Scotty's new BFF Hun Sen. You know, the former Khmer Rogue leader? That one.

For a start, he's been Prime Minister of Cambodia for 25 years. You'd assume from that sort of length of time that he was a dictator, right? But no: as Morrison has repeatedly assured us, Cambodia's a democratic country, and Hun has just happened to have been returned time and time again.

Others disagree, like Amnesty International and the United Nations: the first accused him of war crimes and of torturing prisoners and political opponents, and the latter demanded he step down after they monitored Cambodia's elections and found them laughably corrupt. Hun decided not to worry about either."

"So, to recap: your government is chuffed to deal with a war criminal presiding over a dictatorship in order to send people to one of the most poverty-stricken regions on the planet. Oh, and we've just paid said war criminal $40 million to sweeten the deal - money which will no doubt be used wisely, right?"

There's a few papagraphs about the new Aussie sport of denigrating Australian Muslims in that article...since it's also the favourite sport on OLO, you may be interested in perusing them.

"Tony Abbott might be down with putting your kids at risk by telling a generation of angry, alienated young Muslims that they're not real Australians and that they have no place in our society, and Bill Shorten might be totes fine with going along with it. They are wrong.

And thankfully the wider community has been banding together in the face of this nonsense, via rallies and social media campaigns.

These folks recognise that people from all over the planet have come to Australia and amazingly, for the most part we've gotten along - and benefited massively as a result...."