Originally Posted by Amergin

Understanding is the first step to real peace.

I very much appreciate the feedback from you and from Fahad (sorry about the misspelling.) It is welcome because I think that I (in Ireland) and the US, UK, are given a slanted view on Muslims by the media, and by outright government propaganda. I understand but do not condone average people being angry and descending to hatred of any people who ethnically resemble the 9-11 terrorists. The media and governments here promote that negative feeling. US movies have stopped using Germans, Russians, and Chinese as bad guys and more often the evil terrorist is portrayed as a Muslim or Arab. It is sad that we humans act that way.

I remember during the 1980s, when travelling in London or other parts of England, my Scottish accent was mistaken for Irish and I got searched and stripped twice because they assumed I could be Irish Republican Army (IRA.) The people who did 9-11 and 7-7 were called "Islamic Terrorists" but do you recall ever hearing Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (Oklahoma City Bombing) called "Christian Terrorists". McVeigh did carry a Bible with him. Eric Rudolph blew up clinics, bars, and a mixed race crowd in Atlanta. He is a member of the Radical Christian Fundamentalist group, Christian Identity. Yet he was never called a "Christian Terrorist."

I know from past medical practice in East Africa and an emergency Medical Team in Banda Aceh, Indonesia after the Tsunami December 2004. I worked with thousands of Muslims as aid workers, and treated several thousand Muslim patients. I have also known many Christians, obviously, as doctors, nurses, researchers, and just average people at my home city of Inverness, my current residence in Donegal, and a year in Seattle, USA. People were people in all of those places Muslim or Christian. They were overwhelmingly good people. I hate to see what is happening because most Muslims are reacting with hatred of Christians and many Brits and Americans hate Muslims.

I only wish the US President and UK PM would abandon the stupid "never negotiate with the enemy" if you call them terrorists. What can they lose if Bush, Blair, Chirac, and Merkel would meet in a neutral place with Osama Bin Ladin, Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Sadr, and the Sunni leader in Iraq? The talks may fail. But maybe they could arrive at a compromise. The West could agree to pull troops out of Muslim Countries if Osama and Ahmadinejad agree to end terror attacks.

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? I saw a telly programme featuring veterans of the Vietnam War (Americans and North Vietnamese/Viet Cong) meeting in Vietnam and tearfully embracing. US-Vietnamese relations were once fully based on hatred. Now today veteran old soldiers hug each other and shed tears. I predict that some day British and American veterans will have a reunion in Baghdad with veterans of the Mahdi Army, Al Qaeda, and Sunni insurgency. People of the Middle East need to exercise their self-determination not have a government designed by Westerners.

Amergin