Originally Posted by roachboy

you have got to be joking, powerclown:
the established system within islam--and the cleric who represent it---clerics are the primary targets of the newer fundamentalist groups--and they have been from the start.
so of course they have been speaking out against these groups and against their tactics....they have been doing it all along. do you know any muslims? have you actually talked to them about this? i suspect not--if you had, i cannot imagien how you would be able to maintain the illusion that this is not as much a problem for most muslims as it is for you. well, maybe it is more a porblem for these folk--you do not have to face the implications of a bascially racist media coverage of islam that surfaced after 9/11...you were doubtless not afriad to go out for weeks after 9/11/2001 because you were afriad some racist fucktard would beat you up. but that was the reality for many many families that i know.

that the american press chooses to place so little emphasis on divisions within isalm over these groups is mostly a function of the limitations of the press itself--maybe covering this kind of thing would undercut the good old fashioned american racism that underpins at least some of the support for the "war on terror"--i dont know the reason, really.

but all you have to do is look.
do a little research--ANY sociologically oriented analysis of the roots of this "terrorism" thing would give you a huge amount of data on these divisions.
you only do not know because you have not looked.

as for thomas friedman--less said the better. i think the man is a fool.