In response to Brendan Cavalier’s Monday column (‘Look hard at Islam’s leaders,’ Dec. 2, pg. 3), he pushes the Muslim world into a corner, having failed to ‘answer’ his doubts and concerns, which are equivocal to those of much of the narrow-minded and paranoid in this country. While it is true that members of Islamic terrorist organizations, namely Al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, have been responsible for a rash of attacks, they are a very small minority of the Islamic world.
People like Pat Robertson, a vociferous representative of the Christian Coalition, who declare Mohammed a terrorist, give the terrorists a further reason to despise Americans. The many Osama bin Ladens of the world look for the ignorant things that Americans say to find further reasons to hate us. It also gives people like Robertson a diversion from the Christian extremists who support him (some of which are members of terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan).
Yes, it is true that the American Media found many of the ‘celebrations, anti-American riots and other such rallies, praising Osama bin Laden.’ However, a vast majority of Muslims worldwide sympathized with the rest of the world for such an atrocious tragedy. And people of all faiths, Muslims included, would realize that what happened on that day was wrong. However, what our country does in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq is also wrong.
The United States government, the largest possessor of nuclear and bio-chemical weapons worldwide, has taken it upon themselves to raid struggling countries, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, and help its allies attack people that don’t even have a country. Just around this time last winter, during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, bombs dropped throughout the impoverished country of Afghanistan. Where did those bombs and warplanes come from? You guessed it the United States.
Just a little more than a month ago, Congress granted President Bush a carte blanche to preemptively attack Iraq, if he deems it necessary, with or without the backing of the United Nations. Such actions from the world’s most powerful and aggressive nation can make the hairs on the back of the necks of the most peaceful people in the Middle East stand on end. Such a war will result in further instability for a region of the world that can barely stand on its feet.
By saying that Americans shouldn’t support the idea that the Islamic faith is a peaceful one, you are permitting a long and massive war to be tattooed on the arms of the world’s citizens. And by justifying such a war, for reasons other than a pursuit of oil, with reasons of combating terror (or belligerent Muslim extremists), it is allowing for a continuation of the Crusades that took place nearly a thousand years ago.
Such a war is only justifying the mass hysteria being encountered on both sides of the globe, and by attacking countries like Iraq makes the American people just as evil as the terrorists. If the American people were brave enough to face the insecurities brought on by terrorists, they would have the guts to stand up and renounce the war on terror and speak face-to-face with them, in terms of peace. Perhaps, Mr. Cavalier, you should write a petition to the members of congress, calling for the leaders of the world to unite and try to resolve disputed issues in a diplomatic fashion.
The pope’s fear of a ‘clash of civilizations’ is a legitimate one, and it is a shame that the world’s leaders, east and west, do not have the foresight that war is the worst possible way to solve and assuage disputes. And the leaders who do realize that war is the wrong answer to such global tragedies are not speaking loud enough.