Benazir Bhutto has gone home.

Ya know, this post angers me more than anything that has been put on this site.  How dare you use someones death to hope and dream of a world you understand and like.

Let me explain...

Since September 11, 2001, the only people publicly "explaining Islam" is the media, the fundementalist preachers, and the politicians.  Most of America probably didn't know what Islam was, until the fearmongering started, and still don't know about it, except what propaganda is pushed.  Let's get something damn straight. 

First, Yes there are people out there using Islam to viel thier evils.  You will never hear a Muslim deny it.  But, if you let a few idiots decide for you the attitude of more than one billion practicers of Islam, this is YOUR problem.  It defies me to no end, in a land where there is information about Islam all over the place, not one person whould DARE turn the damn TV off and go to the library and read.  Hey, if ya wanna still be ignorant, go ahead.  NOT my problem.

Secondly...If people in the west would simply stop trying to form Islam into what they want, perhaps there would be no problem in the west about it.  Islam does not need a "reformation", it needs people to leave it alone, stop trying to change it into what they want it to be, mainly for thier own best interests.

Thirdly ad most insulting to me is that you all use someones death (and I don't care who it is) to hope a world comes about that you like and can deal with.  If America was not over there meddling, perhaps Pakistan would be a better place. Perhaps Musharaff might not be in power, and perhaps Benizer Bhutto would not have been killed.  Even more, there might not be any Islamic terrorists in the first place.

But we will never know, right?  Cuz just as this article suggests, Americans are trying to make the whole damned world in a definition they understand.  Who says that America's way of life is the best for everyone?

This is shameful...of course, only in your rose coloured glasses will you not see how insensitive this is.

As I said before...through your rosed coloured glasses, you do not see the disreard for other people's culture and feelings when you use the dead to promote your own platforms, opinions, and or interests.

It looks like the article smoked you out of the woodpile.  I am not caught completely by surprise at your viewpoint, but I am amazed at your vehemence.  

Thank you so much for your perspective.  I have re-read the article with an effort to see it from your viewpoint.    

Sorry, but I simply can’t.  

“But, if you let a few idiots decide for you the attitude of more than one billion practicers (sic) of Islam, this is YOUR problem.”    

I have no problem with Islam.  I really cannot see how you took the article as an arrogant insensitive insult to Islam.  Please point out where you saw the word “Islam” or even any allusion to Islam.  I respect Islam as I respect Christianity.  I judge not, that I be not judged.  I assure you that when I wrote of enemies I did not even think “Islam”.  I thought zealots and radicals, a flavor of humanity that has no religion except extremism and intolerance.  

I have no problem with Islam, but …   

“But we will never know, right?  Cuz just as this article suggests, Americans are trying to make the whole damned world in a definition they understand.  Who says that America's way of life is the best for everyone?”  

… you do seem to have a latent grudge against America and democracy.  

“This is shameful...of course, only in your rose coloured glasses will you not see how insensitive this is.”  

We Americans are arrogant and insensitive some times.  I have seen this first hand traveling with tour groups overseas.  That ignorance is a shame to be sure, and it is embarrassing.   But are you calling the hope that all people will achieve the respect and freedom intended by our Creator and championed by such as Benazir Bhutto rose colored glasses?  If so, you should try them on.  

“Secondly...If people in the west would simply stop trying to form Islam into what they want, perhaps there would be no problem in the west about it.  Islam does not need a ‘reformation’, it needs people to leave it alone, stop trying to change it into what they want it to be, mainly for thier own best interests.  

“Thirdly ad most insulting to me is that you all use someones (sic) death (and I don't care who it is) to hope a world comes about that you like and can deal with.”  

Is the hope that the poor and downtrodden will be given the voice of democracy anathema to Islam?  It certainly wasn’t anathema to Benazir Bhutto, by her own statements, actions and ultimate sacrifice.  

I would humbly ask your pardon, except that you have completely missed the point.  So I won’t.  Instead I suggest that you have a seething anger that was ignited by the spark of your gross misunderstanding of this article, and of this American.    

I am an American, and I am among the luckiest five percent of the global population for that.  I am proud of our strengths, and angered by our weaknesses.  But we wash our linen in public and we get things clean eventually.  We do not hide our light under a bushel, and we do not keep our heads down and ignore what our leaders do (torture, occupation of Iraq, Constitutional violations left and right, murder of the language, etc. etc. etc.) so long as it does not impact us directly, as you have said is done in Syria.  Instead, we understand that freedom is not free, and if we do not face the evil doers among us, we will become Syria.       

Freedom requires eternal vigilance, and democracy is nothing if not messy.  But it beats keeping our timid heads down for fear of losing them, and that my friend, is what Benazir Bhutto went home for.  

Excellent article AzMod

As for Zan

Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.