I am insulted that I was not included on the list of 'muslim terroist apologists'

Here's another question:

Doad Khan (The person overthrown by the PDPA..) was also for women's rights. Why no uprising against him? The reason the PDPA over threw Khan was because one of the assasination of one of their memebers, who Khan thought was going to overthrow him to install a communist regime.

i don't see the difference.  religious fervor is motivated by political climate.  religions arise and adjust in reaction to material circumstances.  they very rarely spring fully-formed out of the heads of madmen before they either a. die, or b. are taken over by more politically minded faithful (paul to jesus, brigham young to joseph smith, king ashoka to buddha, etc.).  many religious founders are very astute politicians themselves, and muhammad was one of them.

muslim terrorism is a relatively new phenomenon, dating back to colonial days (recall that terrorism and militarism are two different things).  history has shown us that, when in power, islam behaves pretty much like any other religion when it has political power: it is repressive, the laws it makes are definitely informed by its worldview, but it also tends to become moderate and bogged down in its own bureaucracy.  in most cases, it was a hell of a lot more civilized than the christian governments.  fundamentalism is a reactionary movement, and so it needs something to react against.  whatever you believe the fundamental motivation is--political or religious (as if they could be separated)--there would be no hamas without the state of israel, or al qaeda without the soviet union.  if islam was still in its ascendency, if there were still powerful ottoman or mamluk or moghul empires, rather than a group of third world nations on the run from most of the developed world, i doubt we would have to worry about muslims with bombs strapped to their chests.  we might have to worry about paying a tax as a non-muslim, but that's hardly a terrorist act.

i would hope that chomsky is smart enough to recognize the violence inherent in islam--the same as is inherent in any exclusivist ideology--and isn't an "apologist" in that sense, but he is correct in saying that the terrorist problem in the world today springs directly from 20th century superpower politics, and the US holds the lion's share of that responsibility.  then again, i think chomsky is a very overrated thinker these days and, on several counts, i think he's full of shit.  he definitely seems like a conceited asshole.

Your 17-20 centuries stat is incorrect. Islam didn't exist until the 7th century. Of course the mideval Hashashins (the word "assassins" came from them ) were much like modern suicide bombers.

this is why i took care to remind you that terrorism and militarism are different.  i mean, the whole world, muslim and otherwise, has a had a "general trend towards violence and conquest" for the past 17-20 centuries.  for someone with such an itchy trigger finger for jumping on logical fallacies, i'm surprised at you.

terrorism is an act of desperation and reaction, usually by a single individual or a (comparatively) small band of dissidents, with the aim of extracting political demands which are usually of a defensive nature.  conquest is an act of an organized military, directed by a government, with the aim of gaining land and resources, human and/or material.  while the umayyads and abassids and seljuks et. al. often cited religion as a justification for military action (just as the catholic countries did with the crusades), it is clear from historical records that their actions certainly didn't bear that out.  despite what christian apologeticists spout, islam is not a religion that was "spread by the sword." 

at most, one can say that islam was a religion whose territorial influence was spread by the sword.  unlike the catholics and their forced baptisms, especially of jews, it was very rare that anyone was ever forced to become a muslim at spear-tip.  many people did become muslim for the sake of greater enfranchisement, but it is well known that jews and christians were treated well in the muslim empires, and more-so as a consensus was steadily built.  under the ottomans in their heyday, christians actually held some of the highest positions in the government.  so it seems that muslim "violence and conquest" was not motivated to a great extent by missionary zeal.  even muhammad was known to have let jews and christians keep their religion, as long as they paid a special tax and did nothing to offend the faithful.

with the advent of colonialism and the decline of islamic political power worldwide, however, terrorism grew side-by-side with a fundamentalist-nationalist siege mentality.  this is not exclusive to islam.  fundamentalism, and its secular counterpart nationalism, is liable to flare up in any society that feels threatened.  muslim violence has become sporadic, desperate, and surrounded by volatile religious rhetoric as part of a quasi-nationalistic reaction against western military and cultural encroachment.

i mentioned nothing about bush in my post.  to blame all the violence on bush or the republicans or even america alone would be as absurdly simplistic as blaming it on islam alone.  you're painting with a very broad brush here, kevin, and once more, i'm surprised at you.

Actually, you plagiarized almost word for word from Chomsky's Perilous Power.

But, whatever. It's always been my suspicion that you have no genuine opinions of your own.

Because Communism like Islamism is a product of irrational beliefs. So it must survive on paranoia and violent threats. The leaders don't really believe, they just use it as a tool to dupe the masses for gaining power and wealth.