They own guns, they fear being caught doing something that would brand them an infidel. Yet, people sitting in the comfy confines of America can say they should stand up to the extremists.

The crazies are armed to their ever-lovin eyeballs folks. The weapons I saw in one of the videos were handguns and maybe one rifle. The families in these shorts are just trying to survive and hold on to some semblance of normality.

Eating a salad makes them infidels..this is madness beyond comprehension for me.

I truely thank you all for your comments , hope to read more .

Yes thank god I'm still alive , although had to leave baghdad

because of the situaiton there.

I just want to say , when I was talking about those extremists.

that didn't mean that there are so many of them , they're few in no.

but unfortunatley now they are so powerfull that even we as the ordinary muslims and the clerics can't stand against them.

actually if they would know about me taping these vedios they would probably kill me by now !

I'm not a religious guy , but I know my religion very well

and those people who are killing , bombing are crazy and

if I get to call them something , i certainly wouldn't

attach the word " muslim " to them !

but ... however please let me mention that the medias have

exagurated big time this issue , and they started to call

whoever resist or uppose the american policy in iraq ,

as extremist !

I'm here to reply your questions if you have any ?!

and you could always leave messages in

www.hometownbaghdad.com

Thank you

T. Martin, you're right. It would be ideal if Muslims stood up to this kind of nonsense. However, you need to see the situation realistically. My first thought when I saw the video of that kid chuckling about eating his salad, was, "I wonder if that guy is dead yet?" I expect if he and others were to stand out in the main square in Baghdad and cast the extremists as ridiculous, their life expectancy would be extremely short.

I agree with the previous LW - it's easy to say 'they need to stand up to this', especially from a great distance. I have to imagine it's a lot harder to do it when you run the risk of being killed for not getting in line.

Easy to tell other people what to do. I recognize the young man's laughter as my own and that of countless others in the US, meaning, This is absurd but I am helpless to do anything about it. For now, no one is knocking on the door of my comfortable house, but ....

Bush and his henchmen have eroded civil rights to the point that we should panic. But as I again dragged my artificial titanium knees through the indignities of inspection, including patdown, in order to take a short flight today, I saw in the young woman TSA employee someone who is also amused and sympathetic.

But how I would like to mount a movement to point out this absurdity--along with the absurdity of invading Iraq when most of the 911 terrorist bombers were Saudis.

haha lol

I think it is amazing that with all the chaos this family still sits down and has a family dinner togther. Too many American familys are giving up this important tradition.

What needs to happen in the Islamic countries is for more and more Muslims to recognize that these extremists are crazy and that these ideas have nothing to do with Islamic law. Obviously, the family shown here understands that.

They must stand up to these nuts and openly rebel - to start an anti-extremist movement.

The reason that we do not trust Muslims is because of these nuts' ideas - they are the only ones we hear about and they are the ones doing to suicide bombings, etc.

I really believe that there needs to be a huge protest against these extremists by Muslims in the Middle East. We need to hear and see the Islamic clerics speaking the REAL truth of Islam - not the truth that the extremists want everyone to believe (I would even like to hear from Muslims in the US, UK, Canada, etc). Maybe then, the views in the Middle East will start to change. It will take a long, long time, but it needs to start now.

Is there any Islamic group out there with the guts to start a movement ? Probably not.........

Porkchops, cheeseburgers, shrimp... So now we add tossed salad to the list? Sure. Nice to have some greens on the infidel buffet.

It's not a problem that various religions have peculiar taboos about what you eat, the same as the various arbitrary strictures about what to wear, but it gets scary when the people with these bizarre ideas are the ones with guns.

But "Death to salad-eating bikini girls!"? Egads.

Geeeez...it sounds like an episode of "The Simpsons." What madness.