Muslim extremists

How are we different than the people we’re fighting? Well, we don’t kill people just because of their religious preference. We don’t behead people. We don’t celebrate the death of a leader just because we didn’t agree with their ideals. We don’t kill animals and then place explosives in the carcasses and then place the animal on the roadside awaiting for a convoy to pass to detonate the bomb. Our enemy is warped to the point that I can’t fathom their reasoning.

Today in Mosul, terrorists went inside a Christian church and set it on fire. They did the same yesterday. Why? I haven’t a clue. Surprisingly, I wasn’t called upon to take photos, so I can’t tell you what the House of God looked like, but I can tell you how I feel about the matter.

First, I am a Christian, albeit not the perfect follower, but who is. There are maybe 10 churches in Mosul and I’ve met quite a few Iraqi Christians. Their beliefs are based on the Bible and Jesus, but you get the sense that they still have a strong Muslim influence. The men grow the typical Arabic mustache and most of them don’t eat pork. Needless to say, they face great dangers in this country for just following their beliefs. I remember back in April when a girl gave her life to Christ, after being a Muslim her entire life, at one of our military services. She was one of our translators. The next day, she was shot in the back, probably because she worked for us and not her newfound beliefs. At any rate, in my opinion, this war is just as much a religious war as it is on terror. The people we’re fighting would very much like to execute every Christian, which we won’t allow.

In America, we allow any religion as long as it doesn’t equate to violence. In the Arabic countries, the government, cities and schools revolve around Islam. Like with Christianity, this religion is supposed to be peaceful. But you always have the extremists, who think anybody not belonging to their faith should die. How many crazy guys have we had in the U.S. who killed because they said God told them to?

I’ve made several Muslim friends here, and they all contend that the Osamas of the world misconstrue the words of the Koran. No where in their book does it say to kill people. Islam means peace, not kill. With that being said, I am not against Muslims. The Iraqi people are good people. I don’t look down upon them because I am a Christian and they’re Muslims, and vice versa. This war is about good and evil. Many of the evildoers are Islamic extremists who wouldn’t think twice about cutting the head off of a little girl just because she belonged to a Christian family. We are not fighting Muslims; we are fighting people who give real Muslims a bad name. Muslims don’t hate Americans. The extremists do. Muslims don’t want to kill people. The extremists want power and will do whatever it takes to achieve it, even burning down Churches. The good Iraqi Muslims are our friends, and they just want peace. Soldiers from a predominant Christian country are fighting these extremists every day to preserve the freedoms of all Iraqis, both Christian and Muslim.