I will agree that most terrorist attacks these days are committed by people who profess to follow Islam, even though the commitment of a terrorist act strikes me as a very non-religious act as so far as I know, all religions agree that one should do unto others, as one would want done to them.
But there appears to be a move on the part of Fox News to get the President and others to acknowledge that the killings in France were Islamic Terrorism, not simply terrorism.
My question to people who advocate naming everything Islamic Terrorism is, what do we do about the motivations of other kinds of terrorists?
Was the African American who assassinated the 2 NYC policeman a terrorist, absolutely. But should we be calling him an black terrorist, implying that he represented all people of color?
What about Timothy McVeigh who committed the Oklahoma City bombing? He was absolutely a terrorist and raised as a Catholic. Should he be noted as a Catholic terrorist? What about the IRA, were they Irish or Catholic terrorists or just simply a terrorist organization that did not need to be aligned with any number of Catholics or Irish who had nothing to do with the IRA.
And what about Ted Kaczynski? He was the Unabomber, who committed terrorist murder with mail bombs. Wikpeadia doesn't state a religion for him, but being Polish, he was probably also a Catholic, but nobody would insist on calling him anything other than a murderer.
And don't get me started on the Israeli's right wing vigilantes that kill Palestinians from time-to-time. They are terrorists, but they don't represent the Jewish faith.
Bottom line, as long as terrorism is called terrorism, I don't think Fox News has anything to complain about.
I would prefer they be called anarchists because anarchy is what they cause, and anarchy is known by all to be bad and something to be fought against, without castigating any other beliefs.
Well, Perhaps the President is in discussion with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, India, Indonesia, Malaysia to do just that and doesn't want to antagonize them. Although, I suspect that the political leaders are not where these discussions need to be had because many of them have their own terrorist problems. But that is my basic point. Terrorism is anarchy. Anarchy is committed by criminals. Criminality needs to be confronted by civilized society. There is no need to drag religion into it. That simply makes people of that religion defensive. Societal change almost always needs a nuanced approach.
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