Originally Posted by DANZA
Soon we will stop teaching historical facts about the holocaust because it may offend Muslims. Also we are apparantly the only country in world without a immigration policy. We are turning our country over slowly and willingly without a shot ever being fired


Not the only country, my friend. Have you seen what's happening in Britain? It's now illegal to say anything which a muslim might find offensive, and believe me they are easily offended. Many swimming pools (paid for from public funds) have days or evenings when men are banned, so Muslim women can go there without offending their sensitivities. And many schools have dropped all celebrations of Easter or Christmas so as not to offend muslims. Where is this all going to end?

At the same time, I do have considerable sympathy for the Palestinians who were unceremoniously booted out of their land by the British and allies after WW2 so that Israel could be created there. Many of these people started out as moderates, just requesting compensation for what they had lost, but became hard-liners when it became clear nothing would ever be done.

Israel itself is one of the most unpleasantly racist states on earth, with non-Jew inhabitants treated much worse than the blacks were in apartheid South Africa. Israel has created its own problems and by supporting them America (and to a lesser extent Britain) has become tarred with the same brush. Israel is a very wealthy country, but until it can find a way of working with and placating the people who were displaced by its creation, and their descendants, this mess will continue to grow both in magnitude and extent. Taking the world closer to the brink.

I mentioned a while ago in these columns an excellent book on muslim extremism, by a British journalist called Jason Burke, called "Al Qaeda". I have a copy in SP if anyone wants to borrow it. It's not an easy read, but it shows convincingly how much more serious the situation we are getting into really is, compared with the simplistic view expressed by people like Bush. He makes it clear (without saying so explicitly) that finding the individuals responsible for incidents like 9-11 and bombing the hell out of them is totally and fundamentally counter-productive - for every extremist killed, 100 more are created to replace them. He believes the world is facing its most dire crisis for centuries.