The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

Islamic Terrorism – Fact, Not Fiction

On Sept. 11, grieving Americans were confronted with images of Palestinians and other Arabs celebrating 3,000 American dead.

For a brief moment, anger overcame political correctness in America’s newsrooms.

The mistake was soon corrected, and within the week, networks were castigating themselves publicly for daring to paint an unflattering portrait of the Arab ‘street.’

While these celebrations certainly do not indicate an Islamic consensus, Americans need only venture into Tehran on a typical Friday, where thousands chant ‘death to America,’ to see that these were not isolated incidents. Of course, such images never make it onto our nightly news, where Yassar Arafat is portrayed as an embattled hero rather than a murderer who ordered the executions of two American diplomats and carries the blood of countless Jews on his khaffeyi.

The War on Terror is being hamstrung by political correctness.

By refusing to admit that the threat of terrorism we face is almost exclusively Islamic in nature, we inhibit our ability to respond to this peril.

The American media constantly paints Islam in the most positive light possible.

John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla are identified by their given names rather than their adopted Islamic names.

The Beltway sniper and the July 4 gunman at LAX were both Muslim-yet possible connections to terrorism have been downplayed if not suppressed. Incidents of hate crimes against Muslims have been exceptionally rare in light of the circumstances, a credit to the American virtue of toleration.

Yet mainstream media seems to suggest that such disgusting acts are commonplace.

George Bush, our ‘dyslexic cowboy’ President, calls Islam a religion of peace. Practitioners of this ‘peaceful faith’ respond by burning him in effigy and praying for our demise.

Jesus instructs his followers to turn the other cheek. Muhammad, on the other hand, chides the pious to ‘Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them.’ When the Koran asserts, ‘Believers! Wage war against such of the infidels as are your neighbors,’ should it come as any surprise that conflicts between Muslims and their neighbors exist in Russia, China, Israel, America, India, the Philippines and Christian Africa?

While contextual issues are obviously important in the above instances, the role of religion cannot be overstated.

Undoubtedly, most Muslims are peaceful.

That said, the enemies of peace on Earth are overwhelmingly Muslim; we cannot continue to ignore the correlation between Islam and terrorism.

The rise of radical Islam has resulted from the failure of the Muslim world to modernize. Rather than turning the Middle East into a parking lot, as one angry firebrand suggested, we need to aid in the creation of stable liberal democracies capable of solving the problems of poverty and radicalism so prevalent in the Arab world today.

But if we are to accomplish this, we must end our support for the authoritarian regimes of the region that facilitate radical Islam and, in many cases, fund terrorism.

Most importantly, the press must stop shielding American eyes from the harsh reality of Islamic sentiment; God forbid the American people might get angry enough to elect leaders willing to confront the problem.

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Islamic Terrorism – Fact, Not Fiction