I went to the bookstore last night, and spent some time re-reading about our history and how different rulers managed the empire.

I think that there is room in our Islamic literature for something akin to Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”, which defined capitalism. The more I think about it, the more I think I want to be involved in such a project. I will ask Shaykh Haddad his opinion.

I participate on a forum with a number of great people around the country, many of whom have not ever met a Muslim at all.

The discussion of the beheading of Mr. Berg came up today and it was a real attention-getter.

The main issue seemed to me to be that some Christian Americans are expecting outrage from Muslims/Arabs. I will count myself as one Muslims who is outraged that such a thing occurred. But, a lot of things outrage me everyday! Maybe I am being desensitized, but we have children missing here and rapists and murderers in America as well. Why expect additional outrage because murder occured in Iraq? Iraq is a war-zone, and America is not. I am actually more outraged that things like this are happening in my own country: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040512-1339-ca-xianamurder.html

Compare the murders by insane individuals to the authorized abuses of prisoners who are paid by my tax money, and I feel that what outrages me ‘more’ is the prison abuse scandal. Neither the beheading nor the murder above were committed by people that I feel betrayed my trust and the trust of Americans. We expect and pay our military to fight for what Americans believe in, I don’t have expections such as that from al-Qaeda and the child molester above.

I think the idea here is that non-Muslim Americans feel Muslims should feel ‘especially’ responsible for this beheading, and hence should apologize. I think the question that is at the root of this is, do -I- feel responsible?
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The Washington Post has obtained over a 1000 digital camera pictures showing further abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison (no pictures in the link).

Incredibly damaging to the American image overseas. Damaging enough internally to at least open discussions about Rumsfeld resigning.