Political Islam

As is typical, President Obama condemned the actions of ISIS by praising Islam. His claim was that ISIS had nothing to do with Islam. His reasoning is that no religion would support the killing of its own followers. Apparently, he doesn’t know about the large list of infractions that can turn the average Muslim into an apostate.

This is a version of the straw man argument. In this case, ISIS would only be a few disgruntled thugs who want to take over Iraq. The problem is that they have the numbers to take over parts of Iraq. Not only do they have weapons, but they have popular support. What we fail to look at in the Middle East is that many countries are theocracies. Even the ones that aren’t tend to follow Islamic law.

If you want an idea of what political Islam means, there’s the example of kids with bin Laden t-shirts getting aid from Americans after the devastation in Indonesia from the Tsunami. You can argue that those kids didn’t understand who bin Laden was or may have learned their lesson when Americans, and not terrorists, helped them. It’s even possible that people who have limited access to news and information were sold a bill of goods. The reality is that Islam is popular and fundamentalist Islam is an effective political and legal tool.

This is why religion matters in the War on Terror. The Catholic Church has one country. Even Ireland isn’t under Catholic law anymore. Centuries ago, Europe was strongly controlled by the Church, The Anglican Church started as a way for the king to control the throne and the practice of Christianity. They used religion to make their wars holy. Muslim groups and brotherhoods do the same.

When Muslim countries denounce Islamic terrorists, stop basing their laws on Sharia and starts kicking Muslim hate groups out of their countries, I may consider ISIS just a group of radicals. Otherwise, it’s all one big ball of wax.

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