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“AMANPOUR: that there are moderates and the whole religion should not be painted with the same brush.”

My daughter and I just had a discussion on this, and she made the same point. Here is my counter-point. (Which I acknowledge flagrantly violates Goodwin's law.)

To understand any ideology you should first judge it by what it says about itself, from the most authoratative figures. To understand Islam one should read the Koran and sayings of Mohammad, and the main schools of interpretation on them. One should really try to understand Islam for yourself, by reading the primary texts.

To understand the ideology of Nazism one should read Mein Kampf. Once one read Mein Kampf one would understand that pathological hatred of the Jews was inherent in Nazism, that intense Nationalism and "Deutseland Uber Alles" were key components of this ideology, that war and violence were likely to be part of any Nazi rule.

Most of the counter arguments made by the Islam supporters could be made about Nazism:

It is unfair to judge National Socialism by the views of a few radicals like Hitler and Himmler. There are many moderate Nazi's too.
There are as many versions of Nazism as there are party members. Who are you to say that this one persons views are the majority.
Most things you say about National Socialism you could say about English Torism too - they both think highly of their nation, they both suggest measures to strengthen their positions in the world, they both favor a strong military.

Of course we would all reject such arguments as simplistic, naive and disengenuous. Yet, these are exactly the same arguments that those favoring apeasment of Islam make repeatedly.

Hopefully my points have shown the stupidity of these arguments when made about Islam. Islam is a specific ideology. It may not be as rigid as Nazism, but neither is it as broad as its supporters pretend.

It has a source (the Koran and Mohammed) and it clear from reading the source docuemnts that it is a totalitarian ideology. That is: it believes in it's own right and duty to rule everything, everywere. It requires Submission. (Islam means "submission" in Arabic) It does not value plurality or human rights.

It is fair to judge Islam by it's core texts and basic beliefs. To fail to do so because "there are millions of good Moslems" is as irresponsible as it would have been to fail to condemn Nazism because there are millions of good German members of the Party. There were, but that did not change either the evil that was the Nazi movement, or the predictable results when they achieved power.