An off-topic moment

I keep up with the news. Religiously. To the point that if my coworkers want to know something about something happening in the world, they just ask me. More times than not, I can tell them something relevant.

That being said, I've noticed a disturbing trend. I'd like to think it's my imagination, but evidence seems to be to the contrary. So, at the risk of sounding like a raving Dutchman (see: Geert Wilders), here goes...

Where the hell are the moderate Muslims? Where? For years, I've told myself - as well as the raving zealots of the reactionary American movement - that the radical, fundamentalist, West-hating, self-destructive, xenophobic, totalitarian branch of Islam was an extreme minority. I believed this - and don't get me wrong, that belief if still alive, if ailing - because I had been told it over and over, but also because it is very difficult for me to believe otherwise. It's a possibility that I have issues wrapping my mind around to think that the mujahadeens might be anything but an extreme perversion of the prophecies of Muhammad, which only those who truly had lost all reason could take stock in.

Added to that is the fact that we as the West have done our fair share in making...how can I put this... un-friends in the Muslim world. But then I see things like this:
Killing Will Go On Despite Darfur Charges
Pakistan Hunts Cricket Attack Gunmen
Somali President Bends to Rebel Demand for Sharia Law
Iran Attacks Hollywood Over Movie 'Insults'
and on and on and on

Granted, the news media thrives on reporting violence, disturbances, and well...news. Not even I would read the CNN article titled "1.8 Billion Muslims Go About Business, Live Lives." But still, you'd think after more than 7 years of a war on radical Islam, moderate protest, indigence, or defiance of the totalitarian facets of the Muslim society would, in fact, be newsworthy.

Instead, all I see is ongoing outrage throughout the Muslim world every time someone criticizes the religion, death threats leveled (and sometimes carried out) against those who offer the criticism, and the continued spread of extreme Islam throughout northern Africa, southeast Asia, and even western Europe. This while, all the while, these same states and agencies continue to extol the sins, evils, godlessness, and ultimate doom of Western societies with impunity from self-conscious, apologetic, and appeasing Westerners.

Don't take me the wrong way, I know they're out there. And I know that most of them are doing the boring CNN story: simply living their lives. But it's difficult for me to understand why, at a time when the news on Islam throughout the world gets darker and darker, they wouldn't be just a little more vocal in saying, "Hey, we're not with those guys!"

I don't know. I think it's just depressing.
(CW)WC Out.

Saturn comes back around