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Tim,

I've been pouring through material on the history of Islam, the Crusades an their impact on the Muslim mindset, a comparitive piece on Judaism vs. Christianity vs. Islam, the Koran itself and a few other works for well over 3 years now. For what it's worth, I also did a few semester's worth of work on Egypt back in my college days plowing through it's history and politics from a religious standpoint. Finally, I'm lightly traveled in the Middle-East, as I've been in Morocco and UAE, but since I'm not the type to stick to the typical "tourist" routine, I've probably seen a thing two that are usually missed by Westerners. I know more than just a few Muslims and two of my good friends that I used to routinely play racquetball in KC with are Muslims.

I'm definitely no expert on Islam, but neither am I entirely alien to it, the various interpretations that people hold of it or it's history. Let's just say since 9/11, terrorism and it's various facets have been an obsession of mine in terms of reading.

Throughout everything I have read, heard and seen, none of it pushes me to believe that Islam in and of itself promotes wholesale terrorism and violence. Now, due to a number of other influencers such as poverty, systematic repression by totalitarian regimes, the ongoing Israel/Palestine issue and Western political policy since the British Empire days, have certain segments of Islam taken on a harsher edge and have created an atmosphere where violent religious extremism is more rampant within that religion over most other popular religions of today? ABSOLUTELY.

My opinion is that it's just not as cut and dried as you see it.

When boiled down to it's very essence, religion in it's various flavors is yet another tool for mankind to use. The wielder of it's message is no different that the wielder of any other tool; in sane, educated and careful hands, it can nurture and assist a society. In the wrong hands, it can do horrors beyond description.

To draw somewhat of a parallel: when someone uses a shotgun or a pistol to commit a crime, IMHO it is NOT the gun's fault, regardless of the particular type used. It's the fault of the person that used it.

The same goes for the religions we are talking about here since Islam BY ITSELF does not advocate violent extremism or the slaughter of innocents at it's core and the Koran IS NOT a work that pushes for a policy of "coversion or extermination" from cover to cover.

Those of an uneducated, easily-manipulated nature will ALWAYS be succeptable to the particulars of religious extremism; some more than others due to their upbringing and situation in life. Then you have highly-educated nutcases that have managed to fixate on certain particulars within religion to the exception of all else; they can easily marginalize or entirely dismiss reams of any contrary doctrine to the particular cause they have tied themselves to. Islam is not alone in this, though given that it's the most popular religion in the most poverty-stricken and uneducated regions on the planet, it becomes the "scapegoat" and demonized as it is the most easily identifiable and most readily available label for one to fasten to the populations in Africa and the Middle-East.

There's a LOT more to terrorism in it's current incarnation today than pegging Islam as being the core problem...