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Flushing the Koran: Extremist Responses of Muslims Incomparable To Even Most Radical Christians and Jews

Ross G. Kaminsky - 5/16/2005

The recent news about Muslim reaction following the possible flushing of a Koran highlights one of the world's most serious problems: the hijacking of the Muslim religion by fanatics, and their inclination towards violence. It's hard to imagine a religions American, even one as radical by our standards as James Dobson, calling for death to anyone for flushing a bible. Yet it seems to be the default reaction in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

The "war on terror", as tough as it sounds, misses the point because of its name. It is a war on fundamentalist jihadist Islam. There are moderate Muslims but, if they're smart, they keep very quiet unless they are well-armed. This means that moderate Muslims are in large part either alive and silent or dead (and silent.)

With the continued cooperation either actively or passively of governments in the Middle East, radical Muslim clerics use their messages of hate and intolerance to increase their own fundraising and their political power, especially among uneducated young men.

People who claim that this so-called incident "strengthens the voice" of extremists are aiding the extremists by giving them moral justification where there is none. Islamic fundamentalism believes that their role is to make the entire world Muslim, killing anyone who gets in the way. How we treat a Koran is a red herring; we could put it under glass next to our own Constitution and the radicals would just as fervently want us dead. They are our sworn enemies and we should stop playing patty-cake with them.

Instead of making my grandma take off her shoes at the airport, it's time for the government to call the war what it is - a war on radical Islam - and to fight that war more aggressively, without worrying about "protecting the sentiments" of people whose greatest aspiration in life is to die while killing Americans and Jews.