I would have to say that Mr. Miller displays a collosal ignorance of Islam in general, and of the Islamic mindview towards martyrs in particular.

I think I'll just point folks to this link:
The Mirage of Moderate Islam. Eric Raymond does a lovely job of discussing just why Mr. Miller's proposal would, at the least, insult the Palestinian mothers.

Ok, so maybe _you_ thought it was funny [grin], but I think it shows how much education general America could use on different cultures and some basic history.

But, as you say: Yeah, I know. Realistically, it'll never happen.

Casey, you seem to have missed the point. Scott Miller obviously intends to provoke and intends to insult. That's the whole point.

Other scholars who have a jaundiced. pessimistic a view of Islam have pointed out that, regardless of anything else, traditional Islam's view of suicide is exceedingly negative, and by even the most radical readings of the Koran, you have to engage in substantial linguistic gymnastics to justify blowing yourself up to kill civilians. See, for example, Martin Kramer's article for the Middle East Forum. I had an even better article, but I can't find it.

I don't believe Miller's offer is based on ignorance. It's intended to provoke.

Dean I may very well may have missed the point. Even as I was typing my earlier post I was wondering whether Mr. Miller had his tongue in cheek.

My question, then, is: just whom is he trying to provoke? [grin]

If he really wants to get into some serious mind games with the (what was that phrase? 'islamikazee'?) islamofascist types, I would take a page out of Jimmy Buffet's book.

I don't know if you like Buffet very much, but in his last live album a few years back (recorded partly here in Cincinnati) he suggested that we take a B-1 bomber, fill it full of $5 bills, fly over the then Soviet Union, and dump them. Then, a week later, fly over again & dump a bunch of LL Bean & Victoria's Secrets catalogs...

Jimmy had _his_ tongue firmly in cheek, but that's really how we beat the Soviets. Not crass commercialism, but a genuinely true freedom of choice. Not just your religion or your political party, but what you wore, who you took it off with, how you got the money, and how much fun you had doing all of the above!

This, of course, is what the islamofascists (I can't recall who came up with it, but I like it!) are really worried about. Not just 'sin' in the narrow sense of greed, gluttony or pride, but the greater (to them) sin of picking & choosing any and all elements of your life. These guys make the Puritans look like Berkeley professors.

Well. Start with the fact that he's writing a letter, in English, to the Wall Street Journal, to a specific woman living in Palestine. We all know it's unlikely she'll ever see it. On the other hand, I'm sure his offer is quite sincere, but I'm just as sure that she would not accept, and that he knows it as well as we do.

These people are worshipping a death-god. We can argue whether or not what they represent is "true" Islam; Eric Raymond (who isn't exactly the world's biggest fan of any organized religion from the way it appears) seems to think so, but others, including those who are pessimistic and skeptical of Islam, point out that no matter what, blowing yourself up to kill women and children just simply does not fit with anything in the Koran and is almost certainly sinful. Conversion by the sword is one thing, committing suicide to kill children is another.

Furthermore, the fact is that we know now that the government of Iraq, as well as several others in the region, are paying money, quite enormous sums of it, to the families of islamikaze bombers. $25,000 in that part of the world will pretty much set you up for life. That is just flat-out fucking evil by any rational measure. Miller's offer to outbid these shitheads drives the point home that many of these people are, indeed, selling their children in the name of a death-god.

I'd buy the woman's children, too. Of course she wouldn't accept; she'd be insulted. She'd probably even claim that she's completely unmotivated by the huge sums of cash she's almost certainly already received for her son's "martyrdom." Totally, completely unmotivated by it, I'm sure.

The tragedy is that it isn't as simple as the money. But his simple eloquent offer illustrates to me the horror of what we really face. He isn't ignorant. He gets it better than they themselves do.

C'mon you guys, what are you debating!?

Don't you know what the three most important words in Miller's letter are?

"gOd Of DeAtH"

The rest of it is padding.

Well, er, uhm, yes. Well put.

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