Just as a note to something Adil said:  On its face, Christianity , as a religion, may not appear to be up to the challenge of confronting militant Islamofascism; meekness and all that.  I would respond to that only by saying that Joshua didn't fight the battle of Jericho; God did.  Young David, before he became King, acknowledged that he didn't defeat Goliath; "the battle is the Lord's".  Jesus, by remaining meek, managed to defeat the worst enemy you'll ever face.

I know how this may sound to an atheist / agnostic, but there it is.

My impression is that "Sheila" is right when she says that the Muslims in the USA are less radical than those in Europe because they've bought into the American dream.  Or, more to the point, they've achieved some of the American dream.

I've read in a lot of places that Arab immigrants earn higher than the US median income. Now, if you look at the Arabs as a group, that does mean you're including a fair number of Christian Arabs. But I have also read that Muslims earn more than the median U.S. income, and that "Middle Eastern immigrants" earn higher than the median. [http://tinyurl.com/create.php].

So, however you cut it, Muslims don't live the alienated lives in the USA that they do in Europe. If they see their lives getting better with time, and the lives of their children promising better still, with university education not uncommon, there's just no way that they'll feel totally alienated. They may hate Bush and his foreign policy, but that's another issue.

Compare that the the lives of Arabs in the banlieuex of Paris, where a third generation is being raised in poverty and without prospects for anything better. That's partly the fault of the immigrants themselves, but it's also of the society as a whole, where racism does exist. As for Britain, I don't know. I guess the Muslims there are alienated from any sense of a "British dream," but I have noticed that some of the home-grown terrorists who were caught came from, if not exactly affluent, at least comfortable homes.

As for the US being a "melting pot," rather than following a multicultural model, that's only half true. The US did emphasize assimilation for a very long time. The public [i.e., state] schools served the purpose of assimilating the children of waves of immigrants arriving in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But that changed with the emergence of identity politics in the 1960s and 1970s, starting, I think, with the Black Power movement. Remember their slogan "Black is Beautiful." After that, many ethnic groups started imitating the blacks, with third-generation Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, and Asian-Americans suddenly interested in their roots.

Multiculturalism is a big deal in the USA, too. But maybe Muslim alienation is tempered in the USA by other factors, in addition to their relative affluence. Muslims may be a smaller proportion of the population in the US than they are in Europe, so they're not as prominent or as visible. Also, there's the political culture in the US, for better and for worse. Muslims spouting radical views can count on less indulgence and support from politicians and the public in the States (although some in the media or academia are more supportive). Also, those Muslims who've been in America a long time may have been socialized into the general political culture, which is less Third-Worldist (or whatever the term is) and less left-wing than in Europe. Here's an interesting article on a poll showing that Muslims have assimilated better in the USA than in Europe: http://tinyurl.com/2jmxtq

Oh, another thing, this time regarding the meekness of Christianity preventing the West from responding appropriately to the Islamists:  I don't really think that's an  issue at all.

First of all, most of Western Europe is very secular, as is the USA to a great extent (in spite of a fundamentalist strain). Western European countries may still be influenced indirectly by Christian attitudes and traditions, but this is not a conflict between Islam and Christianity (though some Muslims might think so), it 's conflict between political Islam and the West, which is a very different thing. Outside of the Irish and the Poles, I don't think most Western Europeans are religious Christians at all. I know that church attendance in France has long been at 10%. And, in Britain, Anglican church services are hardly standing-room-only.

Secondly, the fact that Jesus preached that the meek shall inherit the Earth hasn't prevented Christianity from indulging in its own share of violence through the ages, what with the Crusades, Inquisition, wars of religion, and the persecution of Jews and heretics. No, meekness and humility were never a problem for Christianity over the centuries.

Third, what stays the hand of Westerners, especially Western Europeans, is not the Christian religion but the lack of religion, or the lack of a religious spirit. Westerners are heirs of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, as well as of a history that includes the evolution of capitalism, the extension of democratic traditions and institutions, industrialization, socialism, imperialism, two world wars, and the Cold War. What has come out of all that is secularism, individualism, a skepticism toward authority, the progressive ideal of tolerance, abhorrence of racism, and  post-colonial guilt.

Because their world view has been profoundly shaped by the course of Western civilization over the past few hundred years, most Westerners are simply not prepared to see the conflict through Islamist eyes. They just cannot conceive of the fact that, in our day and age, there are people out there who view the world from a totally religious standpoint, people who take seriously things that we thought went out of date after the Middle Ages. That, I think, is what stops Westerners from confronting the radical Muslims head on. In order to better fight the radical Muslims, Westerners might have to become a little more like them. Or at least to understand them a lot better.

[Brian: I've deleted the name of the organisation that Babs gave. I have no idea if it was correct but if someone asks for anonymity, we should respect that. There is real danger of physical or even mortal peril in discussing these subjects. THINK very carefully before you reveal anything that can help evil people.]

Sheila is clearly from --------. It is amazing to me that I lived up the street from this campus for a decade and none of this went on. Muslim Student Organization? As far as I knew it was an org. concentrating on helping the students get through rigorous engineering courses.

I thought her statement that "anything we say is free speech, anything you say is hate speech" was particularly prescient.

We can go round and round about this insult and that. At the end of the day, we all need to earn a living. I think that is what makes American Muslims different from their European counterparts. We are not yet a socialized society where people can choose to be agitators on the gov't dime. Some one is paying the bills for the protesters at --------....

I would like to apologize to the readers of this blog and also especially to Shiela. It never occured to me that she might be in danger by my statements. I am sorry.

I will say though that it is a sad state of affairs that those that want to express their opinions about Islam and the organized effort to stifle free speech need to remain in anonimity. Everyone, including me, needs to think about that.

 Again, I am sorry for my ill thought out remarks. Stay safe Shiela and, I hope to hear more from you (and I promise not to say anything that would compromise you again).

I don't want to sound like Kate Bush here but - DON'T GIVE UP! The very fact that you're principled enough to see the danger in opportunist political alliances means that your input is badly needed. Leftists expose their overriding commitment to foment discord in the hope of gaining power by marching shoulder to shoulder with Islamists - people to whom they are absolutely and fundamentally opposed, except their mutual dislike of America, Israel and traditional Judeo-Christian values. Such opportunism exposes the Left's lack of principle: they spout slogans in support of the downtrodden, oppressed and exploited but, like all false prophets, we know them by their fruits. The sad truth is that such a lack of principle, of moral fibre, is not confined to the Left, as you are now in a perfect position to testify. Your ability to recognise the problem, articulate it and maintain your own principled opposition to the Islamist threat is an influence for the good. As much as I like LGF, you only have to read some of the comments there to see that there are many on the Right who are, shall we say, lacking in sophistication. It's great that Charles is supporting your line. Do you want to leave him increasingly isolated? He needs people like you to help prevent the opportunists leading the unthinking down corrupt paths. This is your opportunity to be a leader - to do your duty to provide principled yet uncompromising opposition to the malicious forces working against us. It is when we are convinced that we are right that we need to remember that the ends do not justify the means. People like you can help to remind us. DON'T GIVE UP.

My remarks were intended for Tom Paine.