I'll stick with "Islamofascism" as a term for the school of thought. It is connected to hard-line Islam and is distinctly fascist in nature, even connected in schools of thought and insane hatred for the evil Other.

1. Today's terrorists killed the bus riders.
2. The terrorists are self-identifying Muslims.
3. Generally speaking, Muslims want to kill the bus riders and people like them.
...
1. Eric Rudolph bombed abortion clinics.
2. Eric Rudolph was a self-identifying Christian.
3. Generally speaking, Christians want to bomb abortion clinics.

Still want to follow that line of logic?

Fortune

a writer for Fortune magazine was on a bus a few minutes behind on that exploded. here is his quick story. nothing breathtaking or sensational, just a quick article by someone who was there and who coincidentally lived in NY on 9/11.

Citation please?

c'mon Dar you should know that 87.63% of all statistics in the cellar are made of whole cloth.

Be honest. You pulled that number out of ... thin air didn't you?

Does anyone know of any polls that have been done in the last five years of Near East/Mediterranean Muslims as to pro/anti American leanings? If we don't have at least some rough numbers for Iraq, how can we hope to know how much effort it's going to take to find closure there?

Crusades + 2 wars in Iraq + Afghanistan + putting people like Saddam, Khadafi, etc. in power, training Bin Laden, arming Israel = far more Muslims than any Christians killed in the WTC bombings, other bombings, etc.

Lookout's comments about statistics got me to checking and I discovered a very cool site with all kinds of statistics from a variety of sources, "Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century"

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm

Here's a sample from some of the most recent Mid East wars and conflicts:

Gulf War:
The US lost 147 killed in battle and 289 dead otherwise. The other Coalition members lost 92 dead.
Shortly after the war, the US Defense Intelligence Agency made a very rough estimate of 100,000 Iraqi deaths, and this order of magnitude is widely accepted.

So that's 528 of "us" versus 100,000 of "them" according to the bleeding hearts over at the Defense Intellience Agency. Comes out to 200 of them for every 1 of us.

Afganistan/Soviet Invasion
Britannica Annual (1994): 1,500,000 Afganistan combatants plus civilians
(20 May 88 Chicago Tribune) Soviet deaths: 12-15,000 killed
100 of them for every 1 Soviet

Iraq Invasion
ESTIMATED TOTAL KILLED (12 June 2005)
USA, Coalition and contractors: 2,131 (ICasualties.Org)
Iraqi military during invasion: 7,600-13,500 (Proj. Def. Alt., NY Post, Guardian)
Iraqi insurgents: 10,000-15,000 (CNN)
Iraqi security forces, post-invasion: 1,300-2,267 (NY Times, CNN, ICasualties.Org) Civilians: 22,248-25,229 (Iraq Body Count)
I used a middle number from each estimate to come up with a conservative total of 52,131 Iraqi dead as of June. This does not take into account the high number of deaths due to the UN embargo during Saddam's regime.
So an extremely conservative 25 of them for every 1 of us.

You know, when it comes to killing, the West does seem to be doing a pretty good job.

Radar may have grabbed his statistic out of the air, but he does seem to be good at catching fly balls.

Sorry to interrupt the discussion, but I just wanted to say I am glad to hear you are okay, Jag. When I heard about this I wondered. My thoughts are with you, and those close to you for your feelings of anger and helplessness. May you heal expediently from the emotional damage this sort of thing causes.

In light of the current tangent, crazies come in all shapes, sizes, colors and religious flavors. I have met many Muslims who aren't extremists and don't have the mindset so many of these attacks personify. I have met Christians that don't believe it is right to blow up an abortion clinic.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Iraqi Security Forces aren't being killed by our occupation forces - they're being killed by insurgents because they are perceived by the insurgents as being traitors/American pawns.

Technically you should take those numbers out of the last set of equations, thus proving that either we are being more careful this time out, or our efficieny is dropping terribly.

In theory, no, Security Forces aren't being killed by us except maybe a case of mistaken idenity here or there. Still, they wouldn't be getting killed at all but for the war and they ARE MUSLIM deaths.

Your point is valid enough, though. The ratio remains about the same without those 2 or 3 thousand, so we can leave them off if you wish.

We also have to add the 200,000 who were bombed for 12 years straight, starved, and kept from life saving medicines between the 2 gulf wars.

Oh, my little sampling was far from a complete one. I imagine if someone had the time to wade through every last statistic on that site the overall ratio would be more like 300 to 1.

Anyone with the time and energy is welcome to correct my perception if its too far off base.

because Lord knows their leadership had nothing at all to do with that.

And our leadership wouldn't either! :eyebrow: