redlegphi

Actually, I don't think the Middle East became a center of science, creativity, etc. until after the Muslims consolidated their rule of the area. Though maybe that's what you were trying to say and I'm just read you wrong.

Anybody or anything can be nominated by anybody. The sport of football (or soccer for us Americans) was nominated one year. There's nothing that special about being nominated. I have no idea if they name "Runners up". What would that even be exactly? As far as I know, they just pick the winner, there is no 2nd place or honorable mention or silver medal that I know of.

Yes and no. Yes, the divisions come down along religious lines, but I wouldn't say they're all fighting for religious reasons. Some are, but I think the main point of contention is who will have power in the new Iraq and how much power they'll have. That's no more a religious struggle than the conflict between the US and Iraq is a Crusade.

I'd say the Nazis were killing for a combination of religious and ethnic reasons, and religion played a role in Hitler's rise to power and in his view of the world and what needed to be done to "fix" it.

This kind of comparison is silly. How many people have died as a result of terrorism by Christians? Regarding abortion clinic bombings, I think the number is a low single digit one. How about deaths since 9/11 due to acts of Islamic terrorism? I'm guessing it's in the thousands. Comparing the two is like comparing a paper cut to a compound fracture. Link link2 Timothy McVeigh was (nominally) a Christian. His death toll was way above the single digits. The IRA is (nominally) Christian. They have killed over 3,000. And, of course, the Nazis were (nominally) Christian.

The roots of radical extremism can be found in poverty, a general feeling of being unjustly held down by "the West", and the support of various nations for radical Islamist groups who happened to be fighting against a common enemy (the US supporting religious warriors in Afghanistan against the Soviets, the Pakistanis supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, etc.).

This is my point. Should we claim that there's a culture clash between Baptists and the rest of America because of the antics of the Westboro Baptist Church? Of course not. The entire concept of a clash of cultures between Islam and the West is a) extreme oversimplification and b) false, as Muslims and non-Muslims have been capable of living peacefully together in the past and can continue to do so in modern times. This brings me to my real point. The best way to kill radical Islam is to kill the economic conditions that grow radical Islam. One of the most dangerous areas in Baghdad for Americans is Sadr City. Why? Because it's the most impoverished, due to years of hate and neglect from Saddam. Impoverished people look for a way to change their fortune. This allows people like Muqtada al-Sadr to preach hate to them and rally thousands and even millions to his banner. Hitler did the exact same thing in impoverished post-WW1 Germany. The best way to kill snakes like Sadr and Osama isn't to cut the head from the body, but to cut the body from the head. Without their followers, such men can do little to nothing, and the way to take their followers away is to improve their economies, get them jobs, and generally make them too busy to go about setting roadside bombs or slamming jets into office buildings. Finally, for the sake of accuracy, I'm Catholic, not Muslim.

The thing with this is that there is no single "driving force behind the religion". There's no central power like the Pope in Islam. Power in Islam, in my experience, is very deceentralized, with local Imams wielding most of the power. This is slightly less true in the Shia branch of the religion, where you have more hierarchical relationships such as the Ayatollah in Iran, but local leadership still remains very powerful. As I'm sure you're already aware, there are voices for moderation in Islam already. The best way to let this moderation flourish is to offer it very covert support, as overt support just tends to make such moderate appear to be pawns of "the West" and of people who have no real understanding of their religion. In short, the best way to help Islam along is to stop trying to meddle in their internal affairs and allow Islam to evolve naturally. Deal positively with Islamic moderates and hunt down the extremists who pose a threat to us.

Except that the difference between Muslim extremists and Peaceful Islam isn't the point of the article at all (at least not as I read it). Quite the contrary, the point of the article seems to be that Islam is a backwards religion that holds its followers back and that can't possibly mesh peacefully with other religions such as Christianity. Ergo the title "Muslim Culture Clash", as opposed to a title such as "Clash with Religious Extremism".

I didn't see anything that said the UAV was a Predator. There are hundreds of UAVs currently in use that have no weapons of any kind and the UAV in this case was most likely one of those.

From what i saw on CNN International this morning when they reported this story, the military concluded that the escorts did the correct thing when reacting to an ambush. Specifically, they got all functioning vehicles out of the kill box as quickly as possible and then attempted to counterattack. It sounds bad to leave people behind, even temporarily, but you aren't helping out your buddies by standing in the kill box next to them waiting to be the next one to get shot. Ambushes are generally well)planned by the attackers, so remaining where they want you to (in the kill box) just plays right into their plan.

It's based on the comic written by Alan Moore (available off Amazon.com and probably several other online stores). Interestingly, Alan Moore was reported to be somewhat pissed with the Cohen Brothers, since the comic he wrote was designed to tout how Britan could overcome a totalitarian state to get what he believed would be the ideal of anarchism. He felt that if the Cohen Brothers wanted to make a movie about the way things are going in the US, they should've made up their own story and not piggy-backed off of his. Still a great movie though.

In short, they're mercenaries hired by the US Gov't for security jobs (usually personnel, base, or convoy security). If you remember back to 2004, the original Fallujah flareup happened when 4 Blackwater contractors got ambushed while they were off on their own in Fallujah and strung-up on a bridge, which brought to the public's attention just how nasty Fallujah was. Reaction to these guys from people still in the services has been mixed in my experience. They tend to get paid better than regular Soldiers, so alot of Soldiers wonder why they don't scrap the Blackwater mercs and just pay us better. On the other hand, can't fault a guy for taking a better paying job if he can get it. You can certainly fault them if they're running around the battlefield doing illegal nonsense and making the war more difficult to fight by pissing off the locals, but I'm really not sure how much that goes on.