|
To say they're not taking a look at their religion because of what's going on is absurd. They are. The vast majority of Muslims are like anyone else. They want a good job, food on the table, a nice life, a healthy family, and enough time to enjoy it all. There is no inate aspect of a Muslim's life that causes them to want to blow themselves up on a Bus, or fly a plane into a building.
What's happening is that Muslims are looking at the extreme elements within their religion and asking the question "Why is this happening?". Why are there extremist clerics who coopt Islamic youth into doing such horrific acts? Part of the problem is internal, and part is external.
Most of the Clerics who preach violence use the 'clause' in the Quran of Mohammed saying it's ok to use violence to defend yourselves. That's basically the root of the whole thing. The early Muslim's were under constant attack, and they wondered whether it was ok to kill the people who were attacking them. Mohammed made it clear that the people who attack them, can and should be retaliated against. It wasn't a warlike statement, but neither was it a pacifist one. The basic tenet was to live in peace and not murder or kill or do anything bad, but it also laid out (much as Paul does in the Bible) that 'turn the other cheek' doesn't mean 'sit there and be killed'.
This becomes a problem now when we have a President calling the whole thing a crusade, and we throw money at Israel. They, meaning the extremist clerics, see their religion under attack, and claim they may use any means necessary to combat this evil. It's a corruption of the Quran, and many Muslims recognize this, but it's also one that will be hard pressed to be eliminated as long as these extremist feel under attack.
Complete and utter disengagement by the U.S. might accomplish this goal, but it would also be monumentally stupid and harmfull to both the U.S. and the region. The majority of muslims can only do so much to calm the fringe while the U.S. and it's allies continue to create new Martyrs and Terrorists. Every time a bomb kills a civilian in the Middle East it becomes more difficult for the moderate and progressive voices in Islam to say anything. It becomes nearly impossible to tell the man who has just lost his entire family, including his children, to american bombs, that he isn't under attack...that it's all ok...and the extremist clerics preaching essentially revenge are much easier on his ears.
While Muslims need to be introspective to what their religion is doing, much like the Germans needed to be introspective, there is one more important simliarity. The recognization of what created and fed the Waffen SS, and the Muslim Extremists, were and are both external causes that the moderate and regular people have little control over. If we, as Americans, actually want to 'win' this 'war on terror' we have to realize that our actions can both combat muslim extremism, but they can also feed it. The Bush administration does not see this distinction, as always, and sees only black and white. Destroy them, or totally capitulate. Fortunately there is a third way. A way that America doesn't capitulate and does actively engage in and fight terrorists, but also one where we actually think abotu what we're doing and how it might actually hurt us more than help us by creating more terrorists in the long run.
Just my 2 cents.
|