US versus THEM

I wrote the following email to a friend of mine, when he complained that Moderate Muslims have no reason to side with America/Israel/the West in general, as America/Israel/the West in general is no better (for them) than the alternative. I wrote up a brief statement in refutation, and I hope you like it! --------- Living in America, for all its faults - and there are many faults - Muslims are treated a million times better than they are by corrupt Islamic regimes. Living in Israel, for all its faults - and there are many faults - Muslims (Arab Israelis, Bedouins), are treated a million times better than their alternative. (the horrific Hamas/Fatah 'government' of the Palestinian territories) Muslims have more civil rights in Israel than they do in the Palestinian Territories, where goons are running the show. India has its butchers from Gujarat, and that cannot be excused, and will remain forever a black mark in India's history. I am not justifying or excusing what happened, and I know that there were literal baby killers. I would justify life imprisonment for anyone responsible, and execution of anyone who raped Muslim women. (I hold rape to be a worse crime than murder, that is my personal morals, but anyway) But why did the Gujarat riots happen? They happened because of Indian government policies which were enabling Islamic terror (the catalyst being the inaction to the Godhra train mob attack), and the thought that Hindus had to take the law into their own hands. And yet that said, the life of a Muslim in India, for all its problems, is still far better than in Pakistan, or Bangladesh. The US has never resorted to such mass rioting. Neither has, amazingly enough, Israel. But my point is that the only way to prevent another dip into barbarism again (which the Gujarat riots were), there must be a movement of Muslims to condemn terror groups to the point where terror groups know they will not get any support from their fellow Muslims, and even be branded un-Islamic. (this has yet to happen) There is no moral equivalency between the US, Israel, or the West and the thugs I speak of. Remember, these are organizations who are killing more Muslims than anyone else. And life in Saudi Arabia and Iran is what it is. Lest we forget, people have been killed in Iran for the 'crime' of homosexuality, or the 'crime' of sex outside of marriage. (including a 16 year old girl, who was raped, and then hung for that 'crime') In Saudi Arabia, someone who is caught stealing a loaf of bread has his hands chopped off! Torture? They have torture down to an art form! You really feel that there is a comparison between the US and these nations? And for all the US's strengths and faults, there is no way it is smart enough to invent such divisions of Sunni and Shia. In short, I don't advocate torture or imprisonment without some sort of a hearing. I never advocated this, and I don't advocate it. But to proclaim that the American abuses of human rights is equivalent to anything in the Islamic world (hey, forget Islamic, let's include China and Russia - they are not fond of human rights there, either, and are linked with Islamists!) is simply missing the mark. I have no problem with you setting a higher standard for YOURSELF than you do others. And so certainly I hold the US to much higher human rights standards when looking at the United States individually. But when I compare the US to other countries, I am proud to be an American.