Mongol Federation's Blog

MF, I think you meant to write:

What's the link between Ground Zero and Islam, anyway? If I came to the US to bomb something, claiming that I do it on behalf of the FSM, would the government, the Americans or somone else seriously believe that the problem is Pastafarianism? "Islamic Terrorist" is an oxymoron - or a nonsense at best - and getting the conversation rid of this kind of crap is the first step if we really want to hope we can get anything productive out of it.

Um, that is what I wrote. Sal seems to have mistaken the comma for a period.

I mistook the comma for bad punctuation. If the comma wasn't there it might have been understandable. If the comma immediately followed "century" you would have successfully indicated the start of the next independent clause. However, putting the comma where you placed it indicates nothing and only causes confusion. If "over the past 3 decades" began a sentence, and you placed the comma after that, it would be correct usage, but with "and" preceding it, you should have put commas on either side of the adverbial phrase.

We have, no matter how much we wish to forget it, caused great harm to Islamic civilization over the last century and, over the past 3 decades, they've returned the favor with the vigor and zeal that would be admirable if better placed.

Or no commas at all.

Now that we've sifted through the pedantry, how about answering my question? Now revised: how have we done great harm to Islamic civilization over the last century?

Now that we've sifted through the pedantry, how about answering my question? Now revised: how have we done great harm to Islamic civilization over the last century?

Iran? Afghanistan (the 1st time)? Creation of the Arab States (the West as a whole is at fault)?

Please elaborate.

Please elaborate.

You're kidding right? You don't see how our actions in those theaters have made them mad at us?