Originally Posted by 3arby";p=&quot

U know, I always like your posts, as I repsect your objective way of thinking. Now I need to explain a point that u may didn´t get very well for a cultural difference :

Capitalism is the Islamic economical system too. What is not Islamic in the American version of capitalism, is the evil side. In other words, throwing wheat productions in the ocean or sponsoring farmers and asking them not produce sothat the prices keep on their high rates, while claiming being deeply touched by pictures of people dying of hunger in Africa. This is what a Muslim wouldn´t do.
Now, the resistance of Islam to the western cultural invasion (which is not a resistance to capitalism, as I said) has other sides. There are a lot of features in western societies which are uncompatible with Islam, and we could spend a whole year mentioning them, so we will just stop at mentioning their existence. Resisting to cultural differences is not something very specific to Muslims. U know, in Bavaria u can see more Bavarian flags than German ones. Does it mean refusing German identity? No, it is simply the pride and the attachement to the own culture. It´s the right of every culture, and nobody can deny this right for Muslims, too.
Now let´s come to this story of "Infadels" : actually I don´t whom do u mean by this word. But I assume that u want the civilians kidnapped in Iraq, or probably all the western victims of the so called "terrorism". An advice : try to take more seriously the arguments of the "terrorists". They may look totally disoriented for u, but if the US took them more seriously, we could have saved a lot of lives today. When in 1997 Ben LAden was interviewed by CNN, he said that his goal is not to change NY to an ash tray or to an Islamic capital. He complained of the American military presence in his own land, thing that was considered as a red line by the American administrations, though, it is a very simple, normal and natural request. Freedom is a universal right for evey body, and UBL (and Arabs) are not the only ones asking for the withdrawal of AMerican troops. Japaneses have already asked for the same thing since long time. AMerican administration, being embarrassed by the legitimacy of Arabic demands, tried to show this anti-amrican movement (represented from the military-active point of view by Al Qaeda, although it had a lot of features, like the Arabic lawyers union, the Arabic writers union.. etc) as a refusal of the western values. However, refusing by itself is natural right, and every body has the right to choose what is suitable for him. So we began to hear more stupid explanations, like the jalousy of American success or American way of life.. Strangely, for a lot of Americans, this jealousy-envy was enough to explain why a hijacker would kill himself!! A valid cause, as if these people, coming from a strange and unknown culture, have nothing to do, and are very likely to kill someomne for his NKE shoes or his LEE jeans. I don´t know how much American leaders respect their own people to make them beleive such stupid arguments, but this shows at least how far the American main opinion can be manipulated, from the political leadership point of view. Sorry AMericans, but I wouldn´t feel respected when my president shows up on the TV and tells me that the American freedom was attacked.
Having said that, u should better try to look for the reasons of the acts u see as terrorism. For instance, struggle in Iraq against your soldiers is a normal resistance that u may face in every country u invade. I don´t recall Vietnamese flowers given to American soldiers. U should learn from your mistakes.
And those persons that u saw being beheaded were so treated (although I don´t agree on this treatement, it is against the Islamic rules, just like the Article shows) because they cooperate with the occupation army.
And the fact of having Arabs but non Iraqis fighting in Iraq doesn´t mean that these people are the terrorists u r looking for. I know some firends, normal students, who choosed to travel to Iraq before American invasion, simply because we beleive that our land and our people are under unfair invasion. (this is a feature of Arabic and Muslim personnality that u may not understand, but Iraq is a part of our Arabic land, and Iraqis are not foreigners, they r compatriots, although we don´t share the same "official" country).
I wish now u understand better the Arabic point of view.