@ How Common Man: Thanks for the clarification. And you’re right about the danger of expanding this thread! It would end up being a Big Picture record.

Some of you are talking about the Koran and its edict to kill non-believers. My understanding is that the 1st of the Ten Commandments in the Bible urges this as well. No?

no.

#1 states You shall have no other gods before me

That is between God and man. That is not a mandate to enforce the first commandment

Later He says:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me,

*Generally* He takes care of those who reject Him Himself. Some could argue some counterpoints on that general principle from the Bible but then this thread would stretch to four times as long and be way off topic

The Quran doesn’t necessarily dictate the killing of non-muslims. It does dictate the world to be ruled under Islamic Law. Non-believers have the option of converting or living under the Islamic Caliphate alongside muslims. There are a few caveats such as being second class citizens and paying taxes , but the goal of persons such as Sayid Qutb, Usama Bin Ladin and Ayman al Zawahiri have been the establishment of a worldwide caliphate.

The information regarding the lull between 1993 – 2001 is inaccurate. Between 1993 – 2000, Al Qaida intensified its operations with the attacks against the US embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. In addition, there were the thwarted Bojinka and millennium bombings that were to take place during that period as well.

I’m not here to sway anyone’s politics but to correct the confusion that seems to be portrayed as factual information. There are many talking heads on television that continue to reiterate information that is grossly inaccurate. The west knows very little about Islam, the middle east and the thought processes of the people who live here.

If so, then let’s migrate to a moral code that does away with reliance on the scribbles of people living in a time when “fire” was appreciated but not understood.

Let’s try to remember that before pissing away another $10 Trillion.

OBL drew upon his experience in Afghanistan on how to defeat a much more powerful foe: draw the superpower into the region and bankrupt them. Take the statement “we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” and just flip it: Al Qaeda doesn’t have to attack the US here because Republicans put our troops and our money onto OBL’s home turf, where we could waste away our diplomatic, financial, and military capital.

The neoconservatives and most Republicans have yet to learn the meaning of “discretion is the better part of valor”. They lost a military campaign to Osama bin Laden! At this point, the only way for Bush and Republicans to proclaim any kind of “success” is to move the goal post:
>> “No attack on US soil!! No attack on US soil!!”
Yup. First, they cherry-picked the intel. Now, they cherry-pick the success criteria.

Yeah, you Bush-lovers mean well for the US and the world. *I know that*. Sincerely, I mean that. But, you did not think this problem through. You lost a military campaign to a terrorist executing the same game plan he played against the Soviet Union. Very sad.

And very predictable. This is not Monday-morning quarterbacking. Just because you couldn’t see it doesn’t mean others couldn’t. I was telling friends in 2003 that:
(a) The invasion into Iraq would be a cakewalk.
(b) WMD would not be found.
(c) An insurgency would develop after a lull, after the Bush administration — thanks to the arrogance of and ill-planning by Bush and, thus, the people he chose to help him — created the conditions to cultivate it.
So, for anyone who wants to criticize what I had to say, think back to your own predictions/beliefs in 2003-2004. If you didn’t predict what would happen correctly, then consider the possibility that your “view of the world” differs meaningfully from “reality”. Consider developing a new model or using different data inputs — i.e., stop listening to the pundits & “news” organizations who steered you wrong 4 years ago.

By the way, I also predicted:
(d) Bush would win re-election in 2004.
(e) The surge would work.
So, you see, I’m not a “stopped-clock” libral who just wants to bash Bush and happened to be correct a couple of times in the day.

Now, if only I could predict what would happen next. At this point, I cannot. I spend less time reading politics any more and spend more time trying to protect my meager nest egg. Also, predicting what Obama will do and how the world will react is much tougher than predicting what will happen when you put-a-bull-in-a-china-shop, which is how easy it was to see what Bush would accomplish.

the answer is to convert them to atheists or agnostics, my personal favorite…

guess you forgot to read the rest of the book, find me some similar quotes in the new testament; mohamed just copied deuteronomy and other old testament books with some additional violence thrown in; by the way the crap you quoted was directed at jews in a historical context, the koran directs its mandates on all muslims…