By Gary Bauer
What do Mohammed Sadique Khan, Ajmal Amir Kasab and Omar al-Bashir have in common?
It’s not race, socio-economic status, geography or politics. Khan was a middle class British primary school teacher. Kasab is an impoverished Punjabi day laborer, and Bashir is Sudan’s president. What they have in common is that they’ve all committed horrendous acts of terrorism and justified their actions by claiming that their Muslim faith required them to act in the manner they did.
Now, what do the mainstream television and print media have in common in reporting these and other terrorist acts around the world? It’s not lack of coverage: the media routinely devote hours of coverage and pages of column space to terrorist acts. But they share an unwillingness to mention that these individuals are operating on the belief that they are praising Allah.
It is a glaring fact that radical Islam is the common denominator in many of the most violent places in the world. It is a sad fact that in India, as in almost every other place where radical Islam has revealed itself, few in the media or in politics are willing to identify what the real problem is.
The media’s reluctance to identify the Mumbai attackers as “Muslim” has been scandalous. As the terrible events unfolded last week, CNN commentators repeatedly referred to the attackers simply as “terrorists” or “extremists.” In one three-hour period, the word “Islamic” was used only once. Statements by many world leaders were no better. The typical statement merely pledged to defeat terrorism without ever specifying who the terrorists were or what their motives might be.
Even the Bush Administration has cooperated in this suffocating political correctness, which prevents us from naming the enemy that wants us all dead. At the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, decisions were made last year to ban the phrase “Islamic terrorists” and to replace it with terms such as “militant.” Read more ...
What do Mohammed Sadique Khan, Ajmal Amir Kasab and Omar al-Bashir have in common?
It’s not race, socio-economic status, geography or politics. Khan was a middle class British primary school teacher. Kasab is an impoverished Punjabi day laborer, and Bashir is Sudan’s president. What they have in common is that they’ve all committed horrendous acts of terrorism and justified their actions by claiming that their Muslim faith required them to act in the manner they did.
Now, what do the mainstream television and print media have in common in reporting these and other terrorist acts around the world? It’s not lack of coverage: the media routinely devote hours of coverage and pages of column space to terrorist acts. But they share an unwillingness to mention that these individuals are operating on the belief that they are praising Allah.
It is a glaring fact that radical Islam is the common denominator in many of the most violent places in the world. It is a sad fact that in India, as in almost every other place where radical Islam has revealed itself, few in the media or in politics are willing to identify what the real problem is.
The media’s reluctance to identify the Mumbai attackers as “Muslim” has been scandalous. As the terrible events unfolded last week, CNN commentators repeatedly referred to the attackers simply as “terrorists” or “extremists.” In one three-hour period, the word “Islamic” was used only once. Statements by many world leaders were no better. The typical statement merely pledged to defeat terrorism without ever specifying who the terrorists were or what their motives might be.
Even the Bush Administration has cooperated in this suffocating political correctness, which prevents us from naming the enemy that wants us all dead. At the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, decisions were made last year to ban the phrase “Islamic terrorists” and to replace it with terms such as “militant.” Read more ...
Source: Human Events
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