Wait a minute. I thought only American policies caused jihadism.

I was under the impression that neanderthal moon-worshippers were the cause of their own rage. These freaks would conquer the world and then turn in on themselves. Maybe what they need are a dozen or so more denominations to calm them down into a confused stupor.

I think Al Qaeda is just testing the waters for new Muslim recruits. If they can fill terrorist boot camps with eager young men too stupid to see the paradox of using violence to protest accusations of violence, then they're set.

And... nobody really doubts they can't.

Dan, I think you meant "tolerant" not "redundant".

(I assume you're making the obvious point that a call for jihad is a somewhat ironic reply to a description of your religion as intolerant or violent. If you're saying something subtle or clever, it went over my head.)

The redundancy (I think) is that al Qaeda is in a permanent state of jihad against non-believers, thus making it superfluous to threaten further jihad.

The more amusing headline was the one from Reuters that said that the Pope's comments had made Middle Eastern afraid. Somehow I think that what made the middle eastern Christians afraid was the anticipated reaction of their Jihadist neighors, not the Pope's comments, per se. Of course, that would be attrbuting a problem to the religion of peace, rather than properly attributing the problem to the pope.

So, here's the next major question about Islam. Does it recognize the concept of irony? I'm thinking not...

Can one declare two jihads at once?

I know that the question implicitly discounts the obvious explanation for the ToL headline, which involves an editor operating on too much coffee and not enough sleep trying to fit a headline into limited space on deadline. I was just curious as to the theology of religious multi-tasking. Logically it seems that conducting jihads for two different objectives at the same time is an invitation to confusion, an accounting nightmare at the very least. However, is it not at least possible that a devoted jihadi could dedicate himself to jihad against the Americans and a separate jihad against Catholics?

I'm not saying I think it's a great idea, mind you; throw in jihads against Jews (which goes without saying) and Hindus (because of Kashmir) and one comes perilously close to having declared jihad against everyone except the Chinese, and that only because one doesn't know them that well. In all honesty that sounds like a faintly ridiculous position to put oneself in, I mean, to a layman unsophisticated in the subtleties of jihad.

Kwo: Duh! Thanks