[silentmars]

Abusive. Barbaric. Evil. Wrong.

These are all words I feel confident in saying are accurate when applied to coerced female genital mutilation. While I appreciate Amnesty International's position - it's obviously impolitic to call someone these things while sitting at the table having a dialog - it's inappropriate to sacrifice our own moral clarity everywhere else.

[illuminate]

"it's inappropriate to sacrifice our own moral clarity everywhere else"

Sometimes pride interferes with the ability to do good.

[waps]

Why ? Nobody writes about the technical accomplishments of the Nazis, which were more than considerable. People barely write about the scientific prowess of the Soviets. It doesn't matter. If a society can't control it's worst elements, the best don't matter. If nothing changes, open war between everyone (not just "the west"), and muslims is inevitable. By the way, such open war has been the norm throughout history, not the exception (right up to 1923, when the islamic state fell to Ataturk).

And, frankly, the terrorists have an absurdly good argument : your prophet was a terrorist (he committed genocide through deceit and treachery to further his political goals - and not just once). What possible argument can you put against this as a "moderate" muslim ?

Start reading here : http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith/bukhari/0... , frankly, if you're still a muslim after a page of those texts, I have news for you : you're a terrorist supporter, or worse. How can any moral person believe that is moral ? Note that the idea of "islam is right, because muslims killed everyone who thought otherwise" is a recurring theme in muslim "holy" texts. How does terror not fit in with that ?

For the love of God, I hope no muslim turns out to be responsible for Boston.