Thai insurgency targets Buddhists
By Richard Ehrlich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 29, 2006


BANGKOK -- Buddhists are fleeing their homes in southern Thailand in the face of an increasingly militant Muslim insurgency that has begun calling for an independent and pure Islamist nation in the impoverished region bordering Malaysia.
What began as an indigenous protest against heavy-handed rule from the mainly Buddhist capital, Bangkok, has developed into a battle reflecting extremism in Iraq and Afghanistan, including beheadings and the burning of schools.
"This land must be separated between Muslims and the nonbelievers. This land must be liberated, and an Islamic system must be its foundation," warned a leaflet recently distributed in the south that the Thai military showed to reporters.
"This is a land of war that is no different from Palestine and Afghanistan," said the leaflet, signed by an obscure jihadist group known as the Islamic Warriors of Pattani State.
"This land is not the land of the Thais, but the land of Fathoni Darulsalam," it said, using an old Arabic name for the mainly Muslim region of southern Thailand.
Other fliers instruct Muslims not to buy or benefit financially from lands abandoned by Buddhists, saying the properties will be distributed to needy Malays once the region is liberated from the "occupying Siamese," according to a Bangkok newspaper, the Nation.
Authorities say 1,730 persons have died in three years of unrest, more than 1,000 of them Muslims, including many killed by confused and poorly disciplined government forces. Others were killed as a warning to other Muslims not to cooperate with the government.
The dead also include about 680 Buddhists who appear to have been slaughtered to disrupt their work and frighten other Buddhists into leaving, according to the respected Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani.
The killers' tactics have grown increasingly brutal, including the decapitation of 25 persons since 2004.
Insurgents also assassinate saffron-robed Buddhist monks who collect alms during barefoot walks through villages and towns, even when armed troops escort the clergymen.
Shocked by the sight of blood-splattered monks sprawled in the street and reports of nearby assaults, about 200 Buddhist villagers in Yala province have fled.

Thai insurgency targets Buddhists*-*World*-*The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Let's see...

The same thing is happening in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia - and almost every other country where there's any Muslim population.

Why would we think it'd be different in the Orient?

But, but, it's only a few violent ones. Didn't you get the memo?

I'd say something about the Qu'ran mentioning that "Allah loves not the aggressor," that holy wars occur with every major religion, and that the Bible advocates stoning as a valid punishment for adulterers, but I have the feeling it would fall on deaf ears.

I'd say go ahead and mention something about the Koran saying "Allah loves not the aggressor." But I'd suggest you quote it, and source it.

Then I'd suggest you explain why Islam has always - from the time of Muhammad - been a religion of violence and bloodshed.

Holy Qur'an, Surah 2, Ayats 190 - 195:

"And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight aginst you but be not aggressive. Surely Allah loves not the aggressors. 191. And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from where they drove you out, and persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, so if they fight you (in it), slay them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. 192. But if they desist, then surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. 193. And fight them until there is no persecution, and religion is only for Allah. But if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors. The sacred month for the sacred month, and retaliation (is allowed) in sacred things. Whoever then acts aggressively against you, inflict injury on him according to the injury he has inflicted on you and keep your duty to Allah, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty. 195. And spend in the way of Allah and cast not yourselves to perdition with your own hands and do good (to others). Surely Allah loves the doers of good."

According to the preceding verses, Allah does not permit fighting unless someone is aggressive towards you. It's kinda like Moses' Law (eye for an eye). In fact, the 1st verse says that Allah loves not the aggressor. The aggressor is normally the intiator of a fight or disagreement. We are taught that "A Muslim is never the aggressor". How anyone could get an understanding that Muslims kill for Allah is beyond me.

Beliefnet.com

Because all evangelical (proselytizing) religons are.

Christianity was born in bloodshed - and has continued to this day (unless murder of abortionists and bombing abortion clinics and gay health clinics and gay community center is not considered violence). In between, we have quite a large historial repertoire of violence and bloodshed.

Explain how your christianity was born in bloodshed.

Did they knowingly try to infect all their enemies with diseased blood? Or is that a special sick behavior reserved only for United Church of Christ people?

I don't have a Qu'ran, but I could keep going and ask why christianity has been no different in the Middle Ages, and indeed why your god, despite being the deity of a "kind" religion, turns people to blocks of salt and commits mass murder with a giant flood.

I would continue, but I have to eat my delicious dinner which is, ironically, kebabs. I bid you adieu, because like Iraq, I see there is no hope of a clean resolution and so, unlike Iraq, I have decided to pull out before things get ugly.

Sorry for getting off topic, but that felt really good.

I don't know. Was the torture of heretics, slaughter of Native Americans, and robbery from shrines considered godly, or is it just a human reaction to human problems, allegedly rationalized by religious doctrines?