dude there are a bunch of problems in there, your not gonna ever solve any single one of them if you look at them as a bunch, unless you propose to slaughter 1+ billion muslims but then i would say that perhaps the problem is with you too? just kidding...
pb1: the imams / preachers.
We need to vet them, or jail / expel them or both, depending. Even a vetted imam, if found preaching violence for ANY FUCKIN' REASON WHATSOEVER needs be jailed on the spot and/or expelled. Same goes for any agitated bozos in the street who would attempt to oppose the measure.
But perhaps we need tougher laws against incitation to violence and murder for that... don't know the detail of where u guys are placed in the US on that?
pb2: the Qu'ran.
any author can state that his/her words are the true unaltered words of XYZ speaking thru his/her mouth.
while we can't stop the writers (Mohammad in this case but there will be others), any reader/listener who is known to be willing to believe any such stuff "on faith", given the number of violent verses in the Qu'ran and there are quite a few of them, and how it gives imams power to command to them (jihad etc), is a potential danger to society.
requires psychometric eval at the very minimum, and psychometric eval of parents and close friends & associates as well... says "big brother" me... and needs "reinforcement" on critical thinking type abilities
pb3: moderate muslims in our countries. REFORM
they need to think this through... whatever the story was in the 7th century and why and how Mohammad came up with a smart way to control the minds and bodies of hundreds of thousands, now billions, of rather weak-minded people in his struggle against the Christian powers, they need to GROW OUT of that, and quick...
hence the emphasis that should continue to be put on ijtihad / the reformists, and we shld help (but not financially otherwise they will get rejected even more by other muslims...)
ok, some say its impossible to reform Islam, and i've seen fairly strong cases.
But the point here is to get beyond semantics, there will always be one or many hardline "True Islam" sects or whatever, happens in many religions... while the latter need to be monitored tightly wherever they are, what we need moderate muslims to do is equip themselves with better preachers and better teachings...
and notably to recognize that Islam is impossibly intolerant to any form of criticism, and THATS NOT GONNA WORK! therefore they need to get thru with REFORM, or GET OUT!
as an interim measure, i wouldn't be shocked if we started with closing down Islamic schools that we establish are spewing inappropriate teachings (and the same goes for some wacko Christian Schools in the West as well btw, like the Jerry Falwell "Liberty" Uni etc)
then mosks themselves, where there is no "adequate" imam
freedom of religious practice doesn't entail condoning nor inciting to violence and murder...
pb4: legacy of inept US foreign policy over the last 60 years, and continuing...
that's actually pb#1... why?
cause for one, if the US hadn't removed or undermined secular arab leaders in the Middle East for Israel/Palestine or oil related power play in the region, these guys / their secular successors would still be around and in (relative) control, and they wouldn't want to be pushed around too much, if at all, by religious types... but they're gone, killed or jailed etc by or because of the West, and/or by the hardline religious types...
If that weren't the case, we wouldn't be dealing today with inflamed arab crowds all over the world because of what's happening in the Middle-East, nor with muslim crowds all over the world, some of which contain hard (psycho) elements who are prompt to call for murder and violence against the Unbelievers type jihad... cause these guys (the latter) would then be a minority with little support or even worse for them, they would be harshly rejected by the mass of other muslims as total fanatics...
But not if they can be perceived as the last line of defense to protect arab or muslim territories...
And in such a context, nobody would have to give much of a toss if a screwed-up ayatollah in Shia-land Qom utters a fatwa from time to time...
Mais voila, we're not quite in such a context, thanks to big bully american foreign policies since way fuckin' too long...
And thats also why, while i like the spirit and contents of Stephen Walt's book
http://www.amazon.com/Taming-American-Power-Response-Primacy/dp/0393052036 , its way too late for a fix...
the rest of the world has long stopped trusting america to use its power sensibly, and there is no going back... you've totally lost the respect, and THATS forever...
