Dont mean to be a grammar nazi, but the bolded part above sort of went towards my last comment.
Because you spent plenty of time in the Middle East does not make you an expert in the culture, and it definitely does not make you an expert in the religion. Please note that I was born into the religion, and into the culture.
As you can clearly see, I am writing words on a forum. I am not threatening anyone, or running wildly around with a bomb strapped. SOME people (who are psychopaths and not Muslims) act in the manner you describe to intimidate people.
I dont know what preferential treatment you mean. I do ask Americans to be decent humans. If that is too much to ask for, it is a sad loss for mankind.
This kind of reminds me of Christianity in America. Where one group says that they are Christians and bash on all other Christians, but if a third party threatens them or if there is political advantage they come together and together denounce the "evils" of the day. (Kind of like soup of the day)
I'm a mormon. here's my perspective. Back in the 1800's Mormons and their leaders were tarred, feathered, and driven from their homes. The state of Missouri had a standing law to exterminate Mormons, which only in the last decade the state officially denounced and apologized for. What is going on with Muslims today in the US is nothing compared to the crap that Mormons had in the past.
Recently, a mass grave of Irish Immigrants was found. These Irishmen were hired to work on the expanding railroad system in the 1800s and after they finished their work were killed and buried in an unmarked grave.
Native Americans had their land stolen and were taken advantage of because of their looks and culture. They were utterly destroyed besides a few groups that now run cheap Casinos.
So, boooo wooo. Enough of this " Waa waa Muslim's have it rough in the US. Why can't we have our Gym next to ground Zero?" Do you think it's easy for my church to build those Temples of ours around the world? Hell no, but we just recently secured a plot of land in Vatican City. Do you think that was easy? NO, it took years of relationship building and mutual tolerance between Mormons and Catholic church leaders.
Mormons were the most despised religious group for years in the US and has spread world wide. We have missionaries sharing our beliefs around the world. However, we don't proselyte in most middle eastern countries because of the risk to the lives of new members. (though mormon members belonging to the military have received permission to baptize converts in Iraq and Afghanistan).
If the Muslim world in the middle east is so backwards why doesn't the Muslim community (practicing correct Islamic principle) send their version of missionaries to those parts of the world and teach a more peaceful version of Islam.
We have the Book of Mormon as well as the Bible counted as our holy scriptures, if anyone were to destroy one of these books you wouldn't see us starting fires, rioting, or whatever anywhere in the world.
I can understand having groups claiming to be Muslim and really are far from the practices of mainstream Islam. Mormonism has splinter groups as well. Just like the polygamist in southern Utah. We publicly dissociate from them completely. The Mormon church has active and vocal leadership.
The thing that probably scares people about Islam is that when they try to think of who leads the religion they think of guys like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iranian President). At least Christianity has paintings of Jesus, whether he's drawn to be white, middle eastern, black, Asian, Velociraptor, or whatever, and people can associate him as the head of Christianity. Islam forbids any sort of depiction of Muhammad and if you try someone in the middle east gets butt hurt and cuts someone's head off in protest.
See how Islam is a pretty scarey religion? We don't care about the moderate Muslims here in the US. Its the crazy pricks over seas that scare us.
People don't want a mosque anywhere near ground Zero, not because of intolerance towards Muslims here, but because the crazy "muslims" over there will think its their victory. Not yours.
The US is at war with a group of people using Islam as their face to the world, but it doesn't seem that alot of Muslim's here are as vocal about it as a lot of us think they should be. If someone was claiming to be Mormon and blowing up places you would hear an outcry from the Mormon community world wide saying f that guy! (they wouldn't say F most likely... only cool mormons still swear, they'd say gee wilikers and make a note to pray that God would help the world see that this guy did not represent them. As well as the massive media blitz the church would most likely make to make sure the rest of the world got the memo).
That Army Major that converted to Islam is still fresh in our minds too! He was one of our own for Christ's sake! And he shot up a base on american soil in the name of Islam.
Islam needs to take some PR points from the Mormons because the world may be annoyed with us at times because of the guys on bike's that knock on their door during dinner, but they are not afraid we're going to kill them.
Ever heard of the Mountin Meadow Massacre? Back in the day, like late 1800s. After the expulsion from Missiouri, Mormons went west and settled in what is now Utah. A few years later, People heading west from Missouri were passing through the southern part of Utah near a mormon colony. The bishop, who was the defacto mayor of sorts at the time, ordered that this group be engaged in fear that if left alone would attack the colony far away from the main group of mormons farther north in Utah. This lead to the massacre of innocent people by the hands of Mormon pioneers. You know what happened after that? Most people stop the story their as publish it as anti mormon literature. After that, the mormon church (the defacto government of the not even a territory region of Utah) put that Bishop on trial for murder and instigating the whole event. He was found guilty and executed according to the laws that were set up at the time. Justice was served for the senseless slaughter of innocence.
Is Islam making itself accountable for these extremist?
Many of us here in the US are afraid that while Muslims give us winks and smiles here that many of the larger organizations are sending money overseas that is then being laundered into terrorist activities (knowingly or unknowingly).
There is no sense of leadership, no sense of definable doctrine, and extemely different signals being sent out from people claiming to represent Islam.
I want to see some moderate Islam reps denouncing the extreme sects as not being Islamic before I can really say, "want to build something near ground zero? cool."