Posted on 05/16/2006 3:03:33 PM PDT by LSUfan
Reporters are 100 times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism or militancy than all other faiths combined, an article quoted a word search on news stories published in major newspapers over the past decade as concluding.
“Such lopsided portrayal is indicative of deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam, and sometimes just plain prejudice,” said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in an article on Monday. “Surely, all terrorists are not Muslim. Neither are all Muslims terrorists.”
The European Union had noticed resentment among Muslims to the “objectionable juxtaposition of Islam and terrorism”, and was distributing new guidelines to its 25 members that recommended using “non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation”, Ahmed said in his article titled ‘A sensible way to describe terrorists’. EU officials say that the guidelines, which are not legally binding, would ask European governments to shun the phrase ‘Islamic terrorism’ in favour of “terrorists who abusively invoke Islam”, Ahmed said. Other terms being considered by the review include “Islamist”, “fundamentalist” and “jihad”, he said. He praised this “first of its kind effort” to separate terrorism from its perceived roots.
“Associating the criminal enterprise of terrorism with the faith of 1.4 billion Muslims, 99.99 percent of whom will never come near any act of terrorism, much less use Islam as a justification for their crimes, is just plain wrong,” he said. Ahmed said the 9/11 attacks had “brought home the horrors of a new form of suicidal terrorism”. “More and more scholarly writings are delving deeper into this issue and offering us new insights,” he said. “The pioneering instigators and the largest purveyors of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are overwhelmingly Hindu.”
Quoting Robert Pape’s book ‘Dying to Win’, Ahmed writes: “‘From Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign have been terrorist groups trying to establish or maintain political self-determination by compelling a democratic power to withdraw from a territory they claim,’” Ahmed quotes Pape as saying. He said that occupation is the primary motivator and religion, at best, is an “aggravating” factor. “Considering this, the Iraq war has only amplified the problem,” he said.
“Falsely associating Islam with terrorism weakens the efficacy of these efforts by creating the impression that the global war on terror is merely a euphemism for a war on Islam,” Ahmed said. “Terrorism is stateless and yet trans-national. ... it will never be defeated through force alone. It will have to be fought ideologically by attempting to win the hearts and minds of those vulnerable to terrorist manipulations,” Ahmed said.
Yeah, Islam claims the entire world...
They put the "fist" in "pacifist."
someone forgot some zeros
“Such lopsided portrayal is indicative of deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam..."
I’m not fat, I’m big-boned!
Yeah, no doubt. In an accurate portrayal of reality, Islam would be 10,000 times more likely to be associated with terrorism.
Maybe, just maybe because most of the terrorism committed in the world today are disproportionately committed by Muslims... Nah, can't be -- must be discrimination!
Baloney! It will be won by removing from humanity that one thing which creates the vulnerability to terror (and violence)...fundamental islam.
To believe otherwise is denial and appeasement.
A start is to make illegal the preaching of violence to others and the making illegal of religious texts on which such teaching is based.
One of Jon Stewart's jokes that I actually liked was when talking about the Mohammed cartoons he said, "Islam strictly forbids pictures of the prophet, which is kind of like not taking the Lord's name in vain or Buddism's unspoken rule try not to make him into a bong."
Not all Muslims are terrorists. 99.9% of today's terrorists are Muslims. And 100.0% of those said terrorists are committing acts of wanton, vicious murder against civilians who can't necessarily shoot or fight back. This includes women, the elderly, children, people at wedding ceremonies, people on vacation, etc. etc. etc.
Terrorists are cowards because they hind behind the skirt of a woman on the battlefield and behind your political skirt in the propaganda battlefield. So, until your activist organization denounces ALL acts of violence perpetuated by ISLAMIC TERRORISTS, I really have no interest in listening to you.
You want a spin job? Become a d.j. And beware of dhimmis that won't be afraid to shoot back...
LOL
I wonder why?
Yeah...only 99% of terrorists are muslim.
If they could get around that rather unfortunate bit, I'm sure they would tell us that white males have wrecked everything instead.
Well, I'm really grateful for those scholarly writings. I feel safer already. 'Cause, you know, I was real concerned about those Tamil Tigers.
“Surely, all terrorists are not Muslim."
You're right. 99.9% surely is close enough to use "all".
(EU officials say that the guidelines, would ask European governments to shun the phrase ‘Islamic terrorism’ in favour of “terrorists who abusively invoke Islam”
What's so abusive about it? They're quoting straight from the Koran!
Ahmed could write for Saturday Night Live. Maybe he's really Baghdad Bob.
"It seems to me a certainty that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of the Arab women are the outstanding causes for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have been developing." General George S. Patton
"It took me a long time to realize just how much a student of medieval history could gain from observing the Arab."
General George S. Patton
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