By John E. Carey
January 4, 2006

Muslim extremism and violence continues to pose a daily reminder to non-Muslims the world over that the estremists inthe Muslim world are using harsher and harsher tools to intimidate non-Muslims.

A few brief examples taken from today's leading newspapers:

*In Thailand, Muslim separatists in the south near Kuala Lumpur have killed more than 1,800 people since starting an independence movement on January 4, 2004. Mutilations, shootings, bombings and arson continue to plague the southern Thai population.

Just within the last 24 hours, a bomb in Yala, Thailand slightly wounded two soldiers, police said.
The government of Thailand also warned its population on Thursday to expect additional random bombings in Bangkok and elsewhere.

*In Somalia, Muslim extremists threatened to completely absorb the interim government. Ethiopia felt so threatened that its army invaded Somalia, pushing the insurgents out of Mogadishu and capturing the city. On Thursday, Kenya sealed its borders to prevent an influx of Muslim terrorists from neighboring trouble spots.

*We all know about the sectarian violence in Iraq.

*In Iran, Muslim extremists have control of the most important parts of the government and many believe that they are pursuing nuclear weapons.

*In Lebanon, Hezbollah, which is supported by extremists in Iran and Syria, still claims a war victory over Israel last summer. Hezbollah is posing a serious government threat to the Christian leadership within Lebanon.

* Muslim religious extremists have been battling the governments of the Philippines and Indonesia for years.

*On the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Muslim extremists ebb and flow across despite government assertions to the contrary. We get daily email updates from the Tribal areas from a reliable source.

President Musharaff has taken sides with the U.S. on the war Against Terror. Yet In December, 2006, Pakistan began to mine the border with Afghanistan to prevent rebel incursions. Afghanistan and human rights groups protested: but Pakistan isn't known for its warm and fuzzy listening and caring. Pakistan will remain a potential boiling point in 2007.

President Karzai of Afghanistan opposes the idea of mining the Pakistani side of his border, saying that it would inconvenience civilians and would not prevent the cross-border flow of Taliban. Last month Karzai publicly accused Pakistan of supporting Taliban fighters, saying elements in Islamabad wanted to turn Afghans into "slaves."

Karzai has accused Pakistan's military intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI] in particular, of helping the Afghan Taliban. According to Arnaud de Borchgrave , editor at large of The Washington Times, "The appalling truth is Mr. Musharraf's geopolitical calculation has given the green light to his Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) to resume covert assistance to Taliban, now fighting NATO and the U.S. in Afghanistan."

*Europe is not invulnerable to radical Muslim violence as we have seen in Madrid, London and elsewhere. Europe's estimated 1 percent of violence-prone Muslims, or some 200,000 youths, should also be factored in when assessing the difficulty nations have in stopping senseless Muslim acts of violence.

Mr. de Borchgrave wrote in the Washington Times on January 4, 2007, "Radical Islam is not confined to Iraq and Iran. It is spreading among Europe's 20 million Muslims from Sweden to Spain. Militant minorities reject multiculturalism. And non-Muslim Europeans are beginning to reassess their pre-World War II and post-Cold War doctrine that appeasement is the better part of valor."

What is particularly troubling about the Muslim violence to date is this: we Americans believe that man, in fact all mankind, has an expectation, a right, to life. In fact, we have a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Our Declaration of Independence separates us from terrorists.

We believe these rights to be "unalienable," in fact sacred rights not granted by man but by a higher power, our Creator; and incapable of repudiation. The right to life cannot be taken by another man.The terrorists don't believe we, or any man, apparently, has an expectation to life. The terrorists have shown that they can commit, intend to commit and are committed to intentional, indiscriminate killing of innocent strangers.What greater disparity could there be in the beliefs between the terrorists and ourselves?Americans see themselves as men with rights "endowed by their Creator."

Terrorists see America as "the Great Satan." They feel fully justified when they commit murder after being offended by cartoons ridiculing their beliefs.

Muslim terrorists, when serving as suicide bombers bound for a certain death (a dubious career choice for most Westerners), take solace in knowing they will be greeted in heaven by a bevy of virgins.

I wish some wise leader of Islam would explain this all to me because I think a once great religion has been hijacked by criminals. And no one has come forward to clarify or justify what is happening around the world.

See:http://peacejournalism.com/ReadArticle.asp?ArticleID=10254

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