The history of religions — especially monotheistic ones such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam — are rife with examples of cruelty, war and even genocide done in God’s name. So should people avoid the phrase “Islamic terrorism,” asks William Blum.
By William Blum
Is it terrorism or is it religion? Does the question matter?
From the early days of America’s “War on Terror,” and even before then, I advocated seeing terrorists as more than just mindless, evil madmen from another planet. I did not believe they were motivated by hatred or envy of American freedom or democracy, or of American wealth, secular government or culture, although George W. Bush dearly wanted us to believe that.
The Koran
The terrorists were, I maintained, driven by decades of terrible things done to their homelands by U.S. foreign policy. There should be no doubt of this I wrote, for there are numerous examples of Middle East terrorists explicitly citing American policies as the prime motivation behind their actions. And it worked the same all over the world.
In the period of the 1950s to the 1980s in Latin America, in response to a long string of outrageous Washington interventions, there were countless acts of terrorism against U.S. diplomatic and military targets as well as the offices of U.S. corporations. 9/11 was a globalized version of the Columbine High School disaster. When you bully people long enough they are going to strike back.
In 2006, Osama bin Laden was inspired to tell Americans to read my book Rogue State because it contained the following and other similar thoughts of mine: “If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize — very publicly and very sincerely — to all the widows and the orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism.”
So does this mean that I support ISIS? Absolutely not. I think they’re one of the most disgusting collections of supposed humans in all of history. But I’m surprised at how often those who are highly critical of them, and supportive of the movement to defeat them, are very…