"Almost all terrorists are Muslims."

[Stewart]

"It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists. But it is equally certain - and exceptionally painful - that almost all terrorists are Muslims.

The hostage-takers of children in Beslan were Muslims. The hostage-takers and murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in the rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims. Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. Those two women who crashed two airliners last week were also Muslims. Bin Laden is a Muslim.

The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against busses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings all over the world, were Muslims. In a different era we considered extremists a menace and a source of corruption because of their adoption of violence. At that time, the mosque used to be a haven and the voice of religion used for peace and reconciliation. Then came the Neo-Muslims.

An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly if you kill one person you have killed humanity, has been turned into a global message of hate.

We can’t call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own. We cannot tolerate in our midst’s those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its images."

ABDEL Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Al-Arabiya news channel from the newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.

Comments...

[nichomach]

Seems to me that he's VERY spot on; I wouldn't agree with the "almost all" bit, though; I'd say perhaps "a very great many" or maybe "the majority". Perhaps it's that Muslim terrorists to a certain extent might be assumed to have some level of shared agenda, so they appear as a more cohesive threat? There's enough terrorists who aren't, though; here in the UK we have the alphabet soup of Republican and Loyalist groups, and overseas we have groups like the Tamil Tigers, a secular organization (whose Black Tigers and Black Sea Tigers also carry out suicide attacks - indeed they originated the "bikini bomb"); they have problems with militia types like McVeigh in the US...

That's semantics, though. Looks to me like a man of faith trying to claim his faith back from those who'd pervert it and take a rather brave public stand against them. I'd say he's to be applauded and supported.

[Moby-Dick]

Religion in many shapes and forms has been used to justify violence......crusades anyone ?

I dont think much has changed since then.



I have always felt that george carlins views on it kind of sum things up.

[Flibb]

Another way to look at it is, what bunch of people's country's are occupied by foreign powers and haven't any other way of fighting them off. Its a fine line between terrorism and freedom fighting.

I can understand why people resort to terrorism when they have no other means to fight, blimey most western governments funded freedom fighters/terrorists, just as long as they were democratically elected of course. The really sad bit is that those we funded and trained a few years back are now fighting us. The most recent examples of this are in Yugoslavia.

[DaBeeeenster]

With the exception of Darfur/Sudan, more innocent people have died at the hand of the Christian than at one of a Muslim in the last 12 months. I find the majority of the time the news media highlight when Muslims kill as opposed to the other way round. Regarding Iraq, we are "well" into 5, shamefull figures.

Having said that, I find what is happening in Darfur just as repugnant.

I think it is somewhat ignorant to frame global terrorism as part of a larger Religious issue. Global terrorism has more complex issues and more difficult solutions than simply Religion. Focusing merely on religion demonstrates an ignorance with respect to the global economy and its associated global military hegemony of the current world order.

[the insaan]

as a muslim i tell you that the terrorist who killed innocent children are not muslim, even if they cal themselves muslims.

Islam is so strict against causing distress to other humans, i give you an example, if a muslim man goes to the restroom and has his way, then anyone else is to enter the same room, and the if the room has been left untidy, then the muslim has caused unnecessry distress to another human, therefore he has sinned and must as god for repentance and apologize to the person he has distressed

[Galant]

In some ways I think this is something to be left to the muslims to sort out. This sort of change has to happen from the inside, and I for one am happy this gentleman has spoken out.

Dabeenster - wanting to ensure that the west looks for the log in it's own eye before getting at the speck in someone else's, the fact is that the war in Iraq is not a religious war in the way that Islamic terror is. Muslims (or whoever), can debate whether they are being true to their faith or not, but it cannot be denied that those who commit such atrocious acts tie it in to their faith, and find motivation in their faith, in a way that the war on terror does not. So let's not suggest that what we have is Christians running around killing children etc. in the way that we have seen recently and often with the terrorist strikes.

What's more, as far as I can see this thread's main concern is with Islam, and how it needs to recognise it's own problems and deal with them. Is it not possible to deal with that subject rather get back into all the usual postions? I understand that some would call the war in Iraq 'terror', but if we're being honest, it is not terrorism in the way we are talking about it elsewhere, can we try to retain clear meaning of our terms?

Oh and Flibb,

Another way to look at it is, what bunch of people's country's are occupied by foreign powers and haven't any other way of fighting them off. Its a fine line between terrorism and freedom fighting.

I can understand why people resort to terrorism when they have no other means to fight,

What I can't understand is why they choose to target children, women, and innocent civilians. There might be a fine line between terrorism and freedom fighting, but the line between morally justifiable strikes and immoral atrocities is quite thick I find.

I realise we're trying to 'look at all sides' here, but why is it that many find it so hard to call what is wrong, wrong? I think that is what the author of that piece was trying to get across. Muslims need to quit passing the blame onto other things, and take ownership of their own sins and methods. Waging war, fighting oppression - fine. Targeting civilians, holding kids hostage, killing them - wrong. Own it.

[DaBeeeenster]

Bush stated:

"We believe that freedom is the future of every nation. And we know that freedom is not America's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman living in this world."

Were you see freedom read "Western based, capitalist Chriistian corporate democracy".

What I can't understand is why they choose to target children, women, and innocent civilians. There might be a fine line between terrorism and freedom fighting, but the line between morally justifiable strikes and immoral atrocities is quite thick I find.

Asymetrical warfare. When you have a stone, and your enemy has an Abrams tank and a family, where do you throw the stone? At the tank, or the family? I'm not justifying what has happened in places like Belsan, but war provides a platform for these distorted solutions.

I realise we're trying to 'look at all sides' here, but why is it that many find it so hard to call what is wrong, wrong?

Because the acts that are carried out by the terrorists bear no relation to the concepts of Islam. You could quite as easily argue that these people speak all speak Arabic.

Does speaking Arabic make you a terrorist?

[G4Z]

Is it not possible to deal with that subject rather get back into all the usual postions? I understand that some would call the war in Iraq 'terror', but if we're being honest, it is not terrorism in the way we are talking about it elsewhere, can we try to retain clear meaning of our terms?

I agree, the "coalition" has all kinds of gunships, war planes bombs and all kinds, its a vertiable firing range with real life targets that run away and everything...

I have to be honest, killing people is the same thing regardless of method. I dont agree with any of it to be honest, the chechens or blair and his best mate bush.

[Rave]

Great atrocities have been carried out in the name of all religions; Christianity has certainly inspired its fair share of killing, even between different sects of the Christian faith. To this day some people who call themselves Christians think that the bible gives them the right to kill doctors who carry out abortions, while others have somehow interpreted the bible to say that white and black people should not be integrated in the same country. In India, fundamentalist Hindus are frequently the architects of disturbances between Hindus and Muslims.

My contention, therefore, is that the teachings of most religions can be distorted enough by a convincing leader to justify all sorts of atrocious actions. The fact that right now the countries where most (although most certainly not all) of the terrorism originates are Islamic countries does not mean that the Islamic faith itself is any more likely than any other to be responsible for terrorism. Let us not forget that the Sabra and Chatila massacres (in which far more women and children died than in Beslan) were carried out by Christian Phalangists.

Rich :¬)

[RVF500]

Seems to me there is fundamentally nothing wrong with religion. Almost all preach peace. Nothing wrong so far. So what's the problem? Enter the politics of religion. Want to motivate a large number of people with a common bond? Bend them to your will? Get them to carry out unspeakable acts? Manipulate their beliefs.

As I understand it the Pope at the time of the crusades decided that the bible really meant that thou shall not kill christians. But, Muslims don't come under that banner. So every armoured thug in Europe got a get out of jail card from his local pillaging and wiping out fellow christians (which of course he knew God was frowning on) by doing a penance of going to the holy land and killing Muslims (which the Pope told him would cheer God up). Considering the Byzantine emporer only wanted a bit of a hand with the Turks at the time it was a bit of overkill.

So today we have the tried and trusted method being used again. Most of the Clerics and leaders, such as Bin Laden, are well educated intelligent people. Whereas a large number of their 'troops' are not. Living in cultures that are far more conservative and insular than we live in. Easier to manipulate. I realise that this generalisation is a bit broad brush.

The point I'm making is that it isn't religion that is to blame but the politics of religion and it's uses as a weapon. Do you blame the sword or the hand that wealds it? Mind you when it comes to the likes of Beslan. Break the sword then cut off the hand.

[Galant]

The point was not to see which religion is better than other - it was for the Muslims to ackowledge that there is a big problem within their own people right now - be it theologically or politically inspired. The problem is the many people, muslims, are committing immoral acts in the name of Islam. Islam needs to recognise that problem and deal with it - not say but others are worse, or others are the same. It is a question which disregards others and looks to oneself.

The question is, "Can you say that I, we, have done wrong, and it needs to change, this is wrong?"

Why on earth we have to keep throwing in 'disclaimers' is beyond me. In fact, it seems counter-productive.

[IBM]

The problem is that within Islam, the vast majority of Immans and other respected individuals of the faith have offered a unified front and condemmed the actions of the terrorists.

Given that Islam lacks a unified structure, and has no head, unlike the Catholic faith, this makes it difficult for these poorly educated individuals to stand up to their more learned 'leaders' by cititing the 'official' stance against terrorism. So since those who can have already said what they think, that the attacks undermine the religion and actually act against everything the Koran sets out, the remainder of the responsibility lies with the individual countries to educate the afforemention individuals to a point where they can make an informed decision.

So Galant, while it's easy to point a finger, or cast the first stone, its considerably more difficult to come to terms with the fact that the whole world has a responsibility to change the way people think...and act. Perhaps you'd like to direct your accusations to the schooling system of the Egyptian Lower Nile region, or that of the East Javan districts?

And sorry to fall back on the whole 'blame the US' thing, but given the majority of these countries from which the muslim extremists are cultivated can blame some of their current poverty, strife, civil unrest, political upheaval on the direct actions of the US before/during/after the Cold War. Without such an enemy for the extremists to use as stimulus, these atrocities would be less likely. I'm sure to some extent they'd still happen, hateful people always find a way to hate, but perhaps they'd be lessened.

[RVF500]

And sorry to fall back on the whole 'blame the US' thing, but given the majority of these countries from which the muslim extremists are cultivated can blame some of their current poverty, strife, civil unrest, political upheaval on the direct actions of the US before/during/after the Cold War. Without such an enemy for the extremists to use as stimulus, these atrocities would be less likely. I'm sure to some extent they'd still happen, hateful people always find a way to hate, but perhaps they'd be lessened.

Without the US they would probably end up choosing someone else who has influence outside their own borders to hate. Previously it would have been Britain or France. Before that the Spanish and Portugese. Similarly a radical poor man hates the rich. He won't do anything to improve his situation prefering his anger to the prospect of becoming more like those he hates.

[adam787_1]

Some people kill with suicide belts some kill with F16 fighter jets, its all the same!!

[RVF500]

It's not the same. The intention of the F16 pilot is to target the lunaticswith the explosive belt or other military targets and can actually be prosecuted by his own side for getting it wrong. The intention of the bomber is target civilians, to kill as many as possible regardless and will be feted by his 'superiors' for the murder of you, me and a kid in a pushchair.