Western Muslim Opinion On The War in Iraq

A western muslim, Eteraz blogged The Sunni militants' version of "insurgency" and "freedomfighting" is non-sensicial; they want not to fight the "occupier" but to kill the occupied.

The Sunnis are not the only ones, the Shia are doing the same thing.

It is the most heinous and disgusting form of "resistance" I have ever seen in my life, or read about. Their strategy is: if we murder enough Iraqi elders, women and children, then the Americans will leave. I beseech Western Muslims to take heed of this. I know you are anti-war, and I know you wish that Americans left Iraq, and I know you think Bush is a liar. I think all these things.

I don't agree, do you think the Iraqis were better off under Saddam? In any event I do deplore the killing.

But please, for God's sake, can you at least recognize, that the strategy of "resistance" being employed by the militants is barbaric. I challenge any person to find me any instance in the history of Islam where murdering civilians as a way to resist an opponent was considered legitimate under Islam. There is no such event.

What about flying planes into buildings, killing nearly 3,000 innocent civilians?

The closest thing I can think of, is when the Mongols invaded Baghdad and used captive Muslims from other cities as human shields. Then, the beseiged Abbassids thought that in order to get to the Mongols they had no choice but to kill Muslims (Mongol archers used to hide behind Muslim women when attacking a city). But that is nothing like what is happening today.

A bomb can kill a lot more than an arrow.

First, because the civilians that are being killed by the insurgents are themselves Iraqi. The people they are killing in markets and mosques (mosques!) are not foreigners being used as human shields by the occupier. In fact, it is the insrgents who are largely the foreigners in Iraq (along with the Americans).

And not all of the insurgents are Sunni. There are Shia coming from Iran to kill Sunnis.

Second, with the Mongols, there was a consensus amongst all Muslims that Mongols were illegitimate invaders. The women and children that the insurgents are killing are not illegitimate invaders. Yet none of us say a single thing about their murder.

The "Islamic" thing for the insurgents would be to attack only military targets. If they cannot attack the military targets, then they have lost. These are the rules of Islamic Law. The Shariah doesn't say that "well, if you can't attack the military, go ahead and slaughter any one who comes across your way." That's not Islam. Please recognize that. That's nihilism. It has no honor. It is not Islamic.

And you should not kill ANY civilians. Not just civilians that are Muslim, but ANY civilians.