Terrorism, Why do they hate? Day 2: Islam is an inherently violent religion (After a long layoff)
There are some commentators in the national security punditry that believe that Islam is behind our terrorism problem. According to Gregory Davis’s book Religion of Peace?, Islam is a form of totalitarianism with more in common with Nazism than Christianity or Judaism.
Proponents: Gregory Davis, as discussed above, Nicholas Drummond, and other assorted neo-conservatives.
Plausibility: Not high. I’m not an expert on the details of Islam, but I have spent some time in the Muslim world. My own experience, admittedly anecdotal, taught me that Muslims weren’t much different from any of the rest of us. They faced the same challenges, had the same desires, and tried to live their life as well as they could. Furthermore, there are over a billion Muslims in the world, and almost none of them use their religion as justification for attacking the West. I think it is a mistake to take the actions of a very small minority as indicative of the whole. Finally, Islam is hardly a monolithic religion–Muslims practice their religion in many different ways in many different areas.
Counter-Terrorism Policy Ramifications: Accepting this view would be to accept that we are at war with Islam. It means that Islam is so counter to our values that we can never really be safe from the Islamic threat. There is little to nothing America can do to ease the threat.
My Opinion: Terrorists use Islam to justify their actions. We need to recognize that Islam plays a role, but it doesn’t play THE role. Islam alone is not enough to justify acts of terrorism.
