September 30, 2001

12:03 AM

From the essay by Ziauddin Sardar: Scroll 2/3 of the way down--it's from I.S.I.S. The Institute For Islamic Secularization A Call for Caution and Prudence * We need free inquiry of the religious premises of the growing conflagration. * We need rational debate of the questionable premises of a "holy war" or jihad. * We need a rational debate of the biblical call for retribution. * We call upon the United States not to act unilaterally and to petition the United Nations to establish a peace-keeping force. * All terrorists when apprehended should be brought to the World Court at the Hague and put on trial. * The basic constitutional civil liberties of America should not be abrogated. --Perhaps we're all best off with the godless making the rules?
posted by y2karl (8 comments total)

Didn't we have a "holy war" when the other Bush was in office?
posted by Katy Action at 12:13 AM on September 30, 2001

Katy,

On our part, that was a multinational effort to get Iraq to disengage from Kuwait and make the Emirate safe for democracy.

On Iraq's part, that was the "mother of all battles" to keep us from disengaging them from their southern provinces.

It's really all a matter of how much you wish to rely upon either Washington spin or Saddam's hyperbole.
posted by MAYORBOB at 6:18 AM on September 30, 2001

We made Kuwait safe for monarchy, BOB, not democracy.
posted by nicwolff at 9:23 AM on September 30, 2001

nic,

I know that. Ergo the allusion to Washington spin.
posted by MAYORBOB at 9:24 AM on September 30, 2001

Put this in the hands of the UN and it will become a bureaucratic inaction.
posted by Wet Wednesday at 9:31 AM on September 30, 2001

Read the piece by Ibn Warraq on this same site. Though it is evident he has an axe to grind, he makes some very valid points about the foundations of Islam and the ideology that moderate Muslims AND the West need to combat. If what he writes is true, this is not a live and let live ideology.
posted by scottfree at 2:06 PM on September 30, 2001

Have any of you read Greg Bear's The Strength Of Stones? Underlying premise: all monotheists, Jews, Muslims & Xtians kicked off terra firma for troublemaking & general threat to humanity and exiled to planet where all are installed in automated cybercities that promptly kick all humans out on grounds of unworthiness...And people talk about Nostradamus...
posted by y2karl at 3:16 PM on September 30, 2001

The separation of religion and politics is essential for the following reasons:
1. Individuals must not only have the freedom of religion, but also the freedom from religion (by choice).
2. If a religious dogma is taken to be the foundation of all public policy decisions, then the legislative process becomes an exegetical debate. We get religious scholars debating interpretation of the dogma, rather than legislators debating the effectiveness of policy options.

As a matter of general principle, I would prefer that US foreign policy support governments that are secular, regardless of political system (communist, socialist, etc.), rather than support democratic governments that are theocratic.
posted by yesster at 7:46 AM on October 1, 2001