There are two kinds of internet trolls: those who post obnoxious personal abuse to get a reaction (Martin Gibson type) and those who practice 'flooding' - post after post giving no time for the other person to respond in detail unless they want to spend their lives online - you are approaching the second type, CarolC. You will notice that since this thread re-opened I have, but for once, been confining my posts to one a day, giving you plenty of time to reply to each point- -which you have conspicuously failed to do.

Please tell me where I have 'claimed' to be an expert on India. I merely think that studying it for years is more convincing than a rapid once-over of various websites, which, I repeat, you are not qualified to evaluate in a wider context.

If you knew any of the authors I mentioned you would notice that non of them are Hindu fanatics and that otherwise they represent a varied spectrum of concerns, contexts and opinions. I would suggest that means that in this instance I can ignore any suggestions of not having an open an enquiring mind.

I am very glad you mentioned scapegoating, because it reminded me of the context you are writing from. Faced with the undeniable ignorance regarding Islam of Neoconservative America, rightly disgusted by the complete failure of the administration or public at large to take into account the appalling effects of western interference in the Middle East, and refusing, like any sensible person, to take the distortions and scapegoating of the media at face value, you have simply lumped me in with the bullshit you usually experience and flown off the handle - notably with your repeated and offensive references to me as a bigot. I also understand, via Little Hawk, that people have waged unpleasant campaigns against you in the past. All this leads me to see better where you are coming from.

However there are two ways one can come to the view that Islam is more prone to fundamentalism and violence than other religions.

One is because one holds immovable anti-Islam predjudice, would like 'an enemy' to replace the defunct Soviet Union, needs an excuse to invade an oil-rich country, is a Zionist needing excuses to ignore the fact that Israel is the child of Imperialist powers which perpetrates constant abuses and imperialism of its own, is a straightforward racist, is a western chauvinist blinded to the fact that the Islamic world led the west in almost every aspect of civilised life right up to the sixteenth century and possibly beyond. With this camp I utterly dissasociate myself.

The other is a person who notes that your main theme, that western interference the reason for violence done by Muslims is partially correct, but that a higher tendency to fundamentalism nevertheless does exist apart from this, for a wide range of reasons. This is my position. You mention your liking for looking under the surface of things - a vital trait in anyone with a media as apallingly agenda-driven and limited in America. But you must look under the further layer of a blanket denial, and you must differentiate between the right-wing lunatics you repudiate and people with no particular agenda who have come to a different view of yours through legitimate study and experience. I am not scapegoating Muslims - American foreign policy has killed far more people and accomplished infinetely more damage of all kinds than all the Muslim terrorists put together multiplied by ten. However that is neither controversial or the subject of this thread.