abu_rashid wrote on Oct 15
th, 2008 at 7:41pm:
gaybriel,
This is ridiculous. Firstly many Muslim scholars have re-iterated the Islamic teachings that targetting civilians in conflicts is forbidden. But tell me gaybriel, when the Allies are dropping bombs on civilians all over the place, do you think any Muslim resisting them would be willing to listen to such things? How can you tell people who are being bombed daily, they shouldn't aattack civilians, when their civilians are constantly being targetted? Just because the allies make press releases afterwards and do the usual "we didn't mean it, unfortunate accident", and half the time they even deny it and flat out lie or claim it was much less casualties than it was, this happened just a few days ago, they were forced to admit they blatantly lied about how many civilians were killed.
Just today I heard a UK commander on the news admitting that the excessive amount of 'collateral damage' is causing them to lose the war, and is throwing the support of the people towards the Talibaan.
All we hear is about Muslims killing civilians, we agree it's not correct and shouldn't be done, but the West is constantly butchering civilians and then lies about it, and then explains it away as necessary 'collateral damage' although of course they add that it's unfortunate..... It's nothing but hypocrisy, and the West are far worse in this issue. Even though the sensationalist media would have us believe it's the other way 'round. It clearly isn't.
I think you're taking my comments to be much more politically loaded than they are. I was talking about public perception by the common man. I was not drawing any kind of comparison between the actions of muslims and the actions of 'the west'.
certainly many muslim scholars hae damned certain things- I'm merely saying that as they don't get that much media attention, when non-muslims have interactions with muslims and the response is to deflect all criticism- it can create a certain impression.
if you see this as me calling for islam to change for the sake of non-muslims then I think you are reading too much into my comments. I am merely explaining from the view point of a non-muslim who associates with many other non-muslims. I'm sure you can appreciate my comments in that vein.
Quote:Islam discourages public reprimanding. It's preferred to advise someone privately without embaressing or shaming them. I certainly don't think that it's permitted to publically accuse and correct Muslims just as a show for the non-Muslims. And that's what's wanted here.
I agree with the last part. It would be wrong to contravene one's beliefs in order to appease another party. but again I return to my point about the impression this creates for those external to this private space, and also external to an understanding of why such critcism must be private.
Does this mean I am allocating blame to the muslim community? no. however it does mean that I am acknowledging this and pointing it out as one of the things that can create difficulty between muslim and non-muslim communities
Quote:As stated, it has been pointed out to them, but as I said, when the West are slaughtering civilians left, right and centre.. it probably won't mean much to anyone. How can you advise people not to respond in kind when it's happening to them daily? and in much more severe measures?
How can an Islamic scholar advise Palestinians not to target civilians, when their civilians have constantly been targetted for the past 60 odd years?
The quite clear solution is, the West must stop doing these things before they begin asking Muslims to do anything. Listen to people like Michael Scheuer, who is an expert on this conflict, and he stated that thee Muslims are just resisting our offensive invasions, if we leave them alone, they'll probably leave us alone.
Even if we look all the way back to the Eisenhower administration, it's quite clear the US has been meddling in Muslim lands, and they are WELL AWARE that it's the root of the hostility they get back from the Muslim lands, here is a declassified government memo from that time:
"There's a campaign of hatred against us in the Middle East, not by governments, but by the people." The National Security Council discussed that question and said, "Yes, and the reason is, there's a perception in that region that the United States supports status quo governments, which prevent democracy and development and that we do it because of our interests in Middle East oil. Furthermore, it's difficult to counter that perception because it's correct. It ought to be correct. We ought to be supporting brutal and corrupt governments which prevent democracy and development because we want to control Middle East oil, and it's true that leads to a campaign of hatred against us."
It's the exact same situation till this day. They recognised it over half a century ago, but they did nothing to reverse it, they just continued doing the same things and causing the problem to become even worse until it reached it's current crisis state....
This is completely unrelated to my comment. We can discuss it in another thread if you wish but I won't address it here cause it's off topic...wait...or is it. I can barely remember what this thread is supposed to be about.
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