The Pope's Comments

I've read on various news sites and various people's blogs some comments about the Pope's comments and thought I'd link to Tim Chailles' post and make a few of my own comments that I had been thinking about already when I read Chailles.

Basically what myself and Tim and others are asking is if the Islamic world wants to show that the Pope's comments about Islam being violent is wrong, shouldn't they react non-violently?

Instead we read things like:

"Palestinians used guns, firebombs and lighter fluid to attack four Christian churches in the West Bank town of Nablus. Gunmen opened fire on a fifth church in Gaza."

and

"The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified.

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword."

and

"The protests and violence have stirred up memories of the fury over cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper of the Prophet Muhammad. Angry demonstrations took place in many countries, and some of the violence was directed at Western targets and Christian churches."

See Tim's "Who's Reinforcing Negative Stereotypes?" for a more complete and balanced post. I don't feel like re-writing everything when he has already posted a good post about this topic. I'd link to another post as well but I forget where I read it.