New York Times article: this is a relgious war

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/07/magazine/07RELIGION.html?ex=1003652916&ei=1&en=c54c30d5008eb8b3

i think this is an interesting articles with a well thought out approach. albeit somewhat "holier-than-thou".. but it's a nice break away from all the CNN soap opera episodes we are seeing..

[caution: long article]

The terrorists' strain of Islam is clearly not shared by most Muslims and is deeply unrepresentative of Islam's glorious, civilized and peaceful past. But it surely represents a part of Islam -- a radical, fundamentalist part -- that simply cannot be ignored or denied.

In that sense, this surely is a religious war -- but not of Islam versus Christianity and Judaism. Rather, it is a war of fundamentalism against faiths of all kinds that are at peace with freedom and modernity. This war even has far gentler echoes in America's own religious conflicts -- between newer, more virulent strands of Christian fundamentalism and mainstream Protestantism and Catholicism. These conflicts have ancient roots, but they seem to be gaining new force as modernity spreads and deepens. They are our new wars of religion -- and their victims are in all likelihood going to mount with each passing year.

 

Yet those who attacked the US apparently view this as a religious war.

I think this is one of the main point of the articles. Should it matter that relgion is a nice backdrop or that it is a convenient cause for the Sept. 11 attacks.. the fact is that religion is being used necessiates that we treat religion as an issue.. and in my view I think a central issue, in this "war."

Historically, Christianity has committed countless acts of atrocity in the name of "religion", but empirically, most states with the majority of the population being "Christian" has moved beyond wholesale fundamentalism. Pockets still remain in Northern Ireland, the overlooked racial groups of Europe and the US, and etc.

Conversely, whether it be the result of economic disparity or societal inferiority complexes, many "Islamic" states have an active and increasingly dangerous element of fundamentalism. "Jihad" is a notion more expressively and directly alluded to within Islam than most religion. It is a concrete tenet.. and while most Muslims view it as a self-improvement "struggle".. the fact is that the idea of "physical struggle" is there for twisted masterminds like Osama bin Laden to use. Are we to ignore that a part of this "war" arise from some twisted perversion of Islam? So yes, religion is part of the issue here at hand.

GO AUSMUS! 2-2.