Just to beat my head against a wall one more time, yes, bigotry against Islam is racism.

[jobycom]

121. None of those verses command Muslims to kill infidels. Care to learn how language is manipulated?

Each of those is taken from their context. During the early years of Islam, the other Arabs were trying to kill the early Muslims, attacking them in their homes and on the roads. These were each passages telling Muhammad and his immediate followers how to fight the people who were actively trying to kill them. They were not meant to be instructions to future Muslims as to how to deal with non-believers (the word we usually translate as "infidel" is actually "idolater," which refers to a specific group of Arabs).

It's a common western mistake to quote a passage of the Qur'an as though it stands on its own, like a passage of the I Ching. We get that from European tradition, because for a thousand years during the Middle Ages the only book most Christians ever saw was the Bible. After a couple of hundred years, everyone had heard the Bible a million times over, so they started trying to finnd new ways to read it. They would read it like a book of fortune cookies, with each verse being a stand-alone as well as part of the whole context. Islam was always a literate culture, and the Qur'an isn't read like that. So, with a few horrific examples, most Muslims don't see those passages as a command to kill anyone. They are historical passages to demonstrate what the early Muslims had to overcome.

For instance, here's the first one it's context.

"Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loves not transgressors. And kill them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for persecution and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, kill them. Such is the reward of those who reject faith. But if they cease, God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression. The prohibited month, for the prohibited month, and so for all things prohibited, there is the law of equality. If then any one transgresses the prohibition against you, transgress ye likewise against him. But fear (the punishment of) God, and know that God is with those who restrain themselves."

The passage is telling the Muslims in Medina that when they are attacked by the "idolators" from Mecca, it is ok for them to fight back, but within limits. And if they stop attacking, the Muslims were ordered to stop fighting them.

Here's the part every liberal should understand, especially after decades of Noam Chomsky. The religion of Islam is not ordering anyone to attack us. The reason Muslims in the Middle East attack us is because we are oppressing them. We are overthrowing their democracies, stealing their wealth, terrorizing their kids, locking them up in prison camps, torturing them to death, and not even apologizing when we find them innocent. Chris Kyle said that shooting them was like shooting animals, and there was actually debate in this country over whether that was justifiable. Read up on the history of Iran, or Palestine, or Saudi Arabia.

We are hated by many factions, and those factions attack us in any way they can, not because their religion tells them we are infidels, but because we are colonial monsters who are destroying their families, countries, lives, resources, and you name it.

So of course OUR leaders don't want you to know that, and they trust that your Arabic is weak, so they make it sound like Muslims are attacking us because of their religion. The religion may be the central part of their distinction from us, at least in the Middle East, but it is not the reason they are attacking us. But, when the US believes it is, that makes it easier for the Bushes and Cheneys of the world to trick our nation into attacking them.

You remember how it went--Iraqis and Afghanis deserved to be killed because they were of the same religion as the people who attacked us on 9-11? Only, the religion isn't why they attacked us. That was just the way BushCo got the US to support our attacks on whoever he wanted to attack.

So, yeah, that's racism, that's what we've been convinced to believe, and it has worked so well that even on a liberal web site the majority of people fight when they hear a different opinion. Just as the US citizens were taught to hate Cubans, Socialists, Communists, Russians, Germans and Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, African slaves, Indigenous Peoples on this continent. And every generation says "We aren't racists, we are basing our hatred on purely logical reasons."

It's how this country maintains its military.