In an editorial published in The News two weeks ago, professor Stephen Nathanson claims “facts show that followers of Islam have no monopoly on terrorism.” His statement is false in light of recent historical facts. Islamic radicals do have a clear monopoly on terrorism.
Nathanson supports his claim by citing atrocities committed by other terrorist groups in history. However, this comparison is misleading and wrong; it suggests a more apologetic stance toward Islamic terrorists and disregards fundamental differences between different terrorist organizations. The extent of Islamic terrorism supersedes and, indeed, monopolizes all other organizations.
This is because Islamic radicalism is not an isolated cause that plagues a small number of countries. Islamic terrorism’s magnitude is unlike any other terrorist movement; it pervades every major Western country on a global scale. There are many examples including the attack on Spain in 2004, England in 2005, and the firebombed embassies in Damascus and Beirut, with scores murdered over a Danish cartoon. Canadians foiled plans to behead their prime minister and blow up Parliament this past year, England foiled plans to blow up trans-Atlantic flights to the US and the Germans thwarted plans to blow up trains in Germany this past summer.
There are countless other attacks as well, and they were all planned by Muslims. According to the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism’s Knowledge Base, on the 2005 Top 10 list of the most active terrorist groups, six of them are Islamic extremist. As a result, the top 10 deadliest terror attacks in 2005 were all carried out by Muslim extremists and every single person on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terror List is a Muslim extremist. And let’s not forget the September 11 terrorist attacks, which became the deadliest, largest and most destructive terrorist attack in history.
This violence, however, is even more striking when contextualized. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), Muslim extremists murdered more civilians in two hours on September 11 than in the 36 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. Evidence from Thomas Madden’s article “Truth About the Spanish Inquisition” at Crisis Magazine shows that Islamic fundamentalists kill more people each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined. They will continue to use terror as a means to weaken and exploit the Western world.
It would be wrong and unintelligent to stereotype all Muslims as being terrorists, because many have rejected such terrorist acts, since most victims of this terror are Muslims themselves. However, all present evidence suggests that the CIA and FBI are not monitoring extremist Christians, Jews, Hindus or Buddhists for potential terrorist threats, but Muslim radicals. And there is something to be said for that.
– Christian Shoemaker is a middler music industry major.
