Ah, the blanket statements about "their culture" as in Islam, which is a religion, not a culture. But anyway, where to start?
In the first place, religion is protected in America. We don't like to single people out because of their religious beliefs, and that's exactly what this program does. Imagine if they started mapping out the homes of Mormons in an attempt to combat child molestation and incest-there would be a righteous outcry over the outrageous level of ignorance and intolerance such an operation would entail. But the same thing happens to Muslims and goes unnoticed, because most people don't like Muslims. It's a sad day when our rights depend on what we like and don't like.
Their "culture" doesn't even let women drive.
There is only one country that has such a law, and it is a loyal US ally. So no, there is no "their culture" that doesn't let women drive. That's completely false-the idea that women can't drive has absolutely
zero religious foundation in the religion.
Their "culture" includes folks getting stoned to death for what we would just write off as trailer park behavior.
Ah yes, so the few Arabs (muslim and non Muslim) who still do this get to represent all the Muslims, and the billion other Muslims who don't do this can't be representative why?
Their "culture" overall looks upon attempts to negotiate in good faith as a weakness, and weaknesses must be exploited, or they themselves are weak.
From what did we draw this conclusion about "Their culture"? Because this looks like a good description of American foreign policy to some. "Kick butt and take names", "abolish the UN", etc etc. So I'd like to know how you decided that this was a feature of all Islam.
Their "culture" will dismiss pretty much anything a woman president does - and yeah, I do think it's been a mistake to have Condi Rice as Secretary of State - because the _men_ who run their culture do not take her seriously.
This is almost comical-there have been women presidents, prime ministers, and vice presidents in every single Muslim country where there are elections. So please explain to me how, when given the chance to vote, Muslim majority countries uniformly elect women to higher positions than do Americans, if this is true?
We also need to separate "religion" and "culture" here. Islam as a religion don't go there and do that... But the folks who are wrapping themselves in the religion so that they have an excuse to harm others - that's a different story.
The theory that Bin Laden is killing people because he thinks his religion commands him to do so is simply absurd-the terrorists
wrap themselves in politics to justify doing things for their co-religionists; they are politicians, not religious leaders, and they don't even pretend to be doing religious things. They argue very basic political grievances-they kill us, we kill them, etc etc.
It is not a religious war, and never has been. But some people are doing their best to make it into one, because that's a whole lot easier than believing that the enemies are people who actually think somewhat like us. That would just be too difficult-the comic book character model of international relations is much more palatable.
