http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100317/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence;_ylt=AsaUx7NcRbxws2mrfKxIWNNv24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTM4a3ZncGpwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzE3L2FmX25pZ2VyaWFfdmlvbGVuY2UEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM1BHBvcwM1BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDMTJjaHJpc3RpYW52

And even given that I along with all the rest of you writing here don’t know all the details of the massacre that just occurred in Nigeria, it is a verifiable fact that fundamental Muslims, if they have obtained a substantial portion of the citizenry of an area or country, with few exceptions slaughter Christians wherever and whenever they find them. It’s a tenant of their faith to kill anyone who refuses to convert to Islam, even and perhaps most especially their own people. Again ….historically that is exactly how Islam gained a foothold in the hearts and minds of men, through intimidation and violence and eradicating all opposition. Rather reminds me of Catholicism in by gone centuries ….and even though the Catholic church for now is behaving somewhat civilly I’m certain the mask will drop and we’ll see their true colors if they ever obtain world dominion over religion once again or find a world wide tyrant to finance.

This massacre was well planned and the victims were mainly women and children.

Maybe some people think that Africans don’t count, therefore, people just want to make political capital out of this tragedy…………

Also, note that socialists are not really liked in mainly Muslim nations and many face prison or persecution for their ideology.

> That looks pretty much like confirmation that you, in fact, blame it all on the muslims.

That’s a funny way of answering my question, which asked what YOUR view was.

That’s quite an accusation – what are your sources?

You manage to do it, and do it well, Ben

Thank you.

He talks about Muslims butchering Christians as if we’ve never seen one group of people butcher another despite belonging to the same religion, or to none at all.

I’m not sure that he does…

The brutality was in retaliation for an equally grisly Christian attack on Muslims earlier this year.

I’d like to pick up on this: “unless he said there was something inherent in the American psyche or way of life“. I don’t think there is, but I nor do I think that there’s something inherently rotten to attributing actions to a national consciousness. Hitler’s Willing Executioners – right or wrong – wasn’t dismissed on such grounds.

Does that really mean any critique of imperialism, capitalism or racism is itself inherently racist?

Why is it dave osler never writes about Muslims when they are killed by others, only when Muslims kill others? You manage to do it, and do it well, Ben, so why defend osler?

Dave Osler is a bitter old man who shows up the rest of us on the left with the cavalier way he tries to use the death of innocent people to attack Muslims.

If he’d written a post against, say – US bombings in Afghanistan, would you write that he “tries to use the death of innocent people to attack Americans“?

You are, of course, right.

Dave Osler is a bitter old man who shows up the rest of us on the left with the cavalier way he tries to use the death of innocent people to attack Muslims.

This commentator states, and perhaps we might think of Iraq as a typical example since it certainly seems to meet most of the criteria;
*Most of the violence has been committed by “governments.”
*Most of the violence committed by “governments” has been against innocent,
non-combatant civilians.
*Most of the violence committed by “governments” against innocent, non-
combatant civilians has been against “their own” citizens, not external
“enemies.”
http://vftonline.org/XianAnarch/pacifism/rummel.htm

The same source claims;
“We’re confident that an average of 10,000 people have been murdered by governments every single day (on average) during the 20th century”.

Are these numbers pie-in-the-sky? – I have no idea, but I’ll bet the of deaths driven by secular causes outweigh those spurred on by the sky fairies?

Firstly, unless you have lived under Islamic Sharia law then you would have little understanding of what this means.

It means that conversion from Islam is punishable by death and that women can be stoned to death for adultery.

This massacre killed innocents and the majority of innocents in this attack were young children and mothers.

If the author of the original post deems himself to be enlightened, then clearly he is barking up the wrong tree because he does not show a lot of care about the innocents who were massacred – no, instead he wants to make political gain out of this tragic event.

Lee Jay Walker

And Turkey….Phew!

“Ah there’s a suprise. Just Visiting pops up to blame the whole thing on muslims”

Who’s asking you for a permission slip?
So,we should leave it in your neutral,unbiased ,non-judgemental superior hands to save the world from any threat–foreign or domestic.
You’ll know exactly when to react,how to react and with that perfect symmetry of porportionate fairness.It must be some kind of hereditary talent that us lesser humans are incapable of.
That moral—-”Goldilocks-Zone”—-neither too hot,nor too cold,but just right.
Some times I wonder who’s doing the “popping up”–here RWF.

Or maybe it was just your way of saying–”shut-up”.

One last question:
When you say “blame it all on the muslims”.—do you mean just Nigeria–or would that included,Algeria,Egypt,Palestein,Lebanon,Iraq,Iran,Kenya,Somalia,Yemen,Saudi Arabia,Pakistan,Kashmir,Mayalasia,Phillipines,Thailand,Chechnya,Indonesia
Sweden,Norway,Denmark,Netherlands,France,Greece and Britain (have I forgotten somewhere?)

You’re not interested in finding the truth RWF.You’re only interested in your religion-”anti-racism”.The be and end all–of all things.

Oops,I forgot to include Sudan.Silly me.

.

You will note that there is not a lot of religion on that list (let’s assume that the Marxist-Leninist religion wasn’t responsible for the crimes against humanity of Mao and Stalin). People do bad things to each other, and evolutionary biology – normally the Bible of 21st century atheists – suggests that ethnic divisions in competition for resources explain why that happens. But the new atheists are quite content to substitute correlation for causation when it is convenient, and so we get facile analyses like ascribing the Northern Ireland conflict to Catholics fighting Protestants over religion. I submit that the same is likely true for the situation in Nigeria; religion correlates with ethnicity, but the atheists prefer to play fast and loose with the causation.

Were the BBC wrong to report: “sporadic outbreaks of violence related to the introduction of Islamic criminal punishments across northern Nigeria. In the worst such incident in the city of Kaduna three years ago, more than 2,000 people died in street protests”

There’s a lot of back-story, and if anyone is interested, I’ve thrown some links together here.

———————————————————————————————-
Northern Nigeria, mostly muslim, takes up Sharia law. 30,000 christians made homeless in Kanu a while back.

BBC in 2003: “sporadic outbreaks of violence related to the introduction of Islamic criminal punishments across northern Nigeria. In the worst such incident in the city of Kaduna three years ago, more than 2,000 people died in street protests eventually brought under control by the army”

2007 “Kano state bans all films from carrying music”

Shehu sani case:
“a case brought against Shehu Sani – a well-known human rights activist, social critic and author. Sani – a practicing Muslim – was prosecuted by a group called Concerned Sharia Forum over a satirical play, Phantom Crescent, he wrote exposing the abuses and double standards by those implementing Sharia law in 12 states in Northern Nigeria….Shehu Sani said he wants to use the play to enlighten the local population as to how Sharia is being used to oppress them. And practically speaking, this is a tall order, which is likely get him into trouble with the Islamic theocrats and jihadists who do not tolerate any form of ‘enlightenment’ that is critical of Islam.”

“One of the ways Islamic fundamentalists have demonstrated their moral backwardness and ignorance is through gross human rights violations. Islam is inherently opposed to human dignity and equality, gender equity and justice.

“According to Mr Sani, the play dramatises the human rights violations perpetrated against women and poor people by the Hisbah. Hisbah is a bunch of jihadists masquerading as Sharia police or enforcers, funded with state money.

“Since independence, thousands – tens of thousands – of Nigerians have lost their live to religious bloodletting in Nigeria. In March this year(2007) , a Christian school teacher from Southern Nigeria was lynched by Muslim pupils for allegedly desecrating the Koran. And last month, Islamic Jihadists attacked and killed at least 9 Christians and burnt several churches in Kano- a Sharia implementing state and an Islamic stronghold. In 2000, sharia riots across Nigeria claimed thousands of lives.

2009 – The Guardian
“Umaru Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s president, has been at pains to play down the long-term implications of this week’s lethal clashes between security forces and radical Islamists across several northern states. But his hurried reassurances, offered as he boarded a plane to Brazil, were not wholly convincing given the apparent spread of hardline Wahhabi or Salafi doctrines in Muslim areas in recent years, the large numbers of militants involved, and repeated warnings about possible links to al-Qaida.

“In 2003, Osama bin Laden singled out Nigeria as an area of special interest for al-Qaida’s destabilisation agenda and the following year the so-called Nigerian Taliban first emerged, although it had no known direct links to the Afghan and Pakistani varieties.

“In a later interview with the BBC, Mohammad Yusuf, Boko Haram’s enigmatic leader, said he believed western-style education was contrary to Islam and “spoils the belief in one God”. Yusuf went on: “Like rain. We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain. Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism.”

BBC
Islamist militants have staged three co-ordinated attacks in northern Nigeria leaving dozens dead, meaning about 150 have been killed in two days.
A BBC reporter has counted 100 bodies, mostly of militants, near the police headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno State, where hundreds are fleeing their homes.
Witnesses told the BBC a gun battle raged for hours in Potiskum, Yobe State and a police station was set on fire.
Some of the militants follow a preacher who campaigns against Western schools.
The preacher, Mohammed Yusuf, says Western education is against Islamic teaching.

And specific to the clashes you raised Dave:
==============================

Human Rights Watch:
“Arbitrary Killings by Security Forces in Jos
“Nigerian police and army forces were implicated in more than 90 arbitrary killings in responding to inter-communal violence between Christian and Muslim mobs in Jos, Nigeria, on November 28 and 29, 2008, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the Nigerian government to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the killings, mostly of young Muslim men from the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group.

BBC
Islamist militants have staged three co-ordinated attacks in northern Nigeria leaving dozens dead, meaning about 150 have been killed in two days.
A BBC reporter has counted 100 bodies, mostly of militants, near the police headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno State, where hundreds are fleeing their homes.
Witnesses told the BBC a gun battle raged for hours in Potiskum, Yobe State and a police station was set on fire.
Some of the militants follow a preacher who campaigns against Western schools.
The preacher, Mohammed Yusuf, says Western education is against Islamic teaching.

Barnabus Fund
“Large-scale anti-Christian violence flares up regularly in certain Nigerian states, though in this most recent violence it seems that the police were intended as targets as well as the Christians.
“Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, says, “Our Christian brothers and sisters in Northern Nigeria are repeatedly the victims of mass violence, with churches burnt and people killed, just as we have seen again in the last few days. All too often, as in this case, it is apparent that the attacks have been well planned and orchestrated. Please pray for peace and stability in this part of Nigeria, also for freedom and justice for its Christian minority, which suffers much in the states where full sharia is in force. Pray that Christians will not retaliate.”