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Originally Posted by Yasa
There's a lot of nuance here. There are Christian terrorist groups in these countries; the Ilaga in the Philippines, the Anti-Balaka in the Central African Republic, the National Liberation Front of Tripura in India, the NSCN in India and Burma. There is a Hindu extremist group in India, Abhinav Bharat, responsible for the Malegaon bombings in 2006. The SPCD in Burma encouraged violence in the name of Buddhism, and similar instances in South East Thailand in response to Islamic separatists
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Shall we compare the number of civilians killed in the last 30 years by the Ilaga versus Abu Sayyaf and the Moror Islamic Liberation Front? By the National Liberation Front of Tipura and their Muslim counterparts like Lashkar-e-Taiba?
Nobody is claiming radical Islamicists are the only people who commit terrorist acts. But it's an enormous leap of sophistry from "Muslim groups aren't the only ones committing mass terror attacks" to "Islam is no different when it comes to terrorism today than any other religion."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yasa
My point isn't that current Islamic terrorism should get a free pass because other terrorism happens too, but rather that each group/tribe/belief will have a population of extremists and it's not helpful to simplify their motives while attributing their actions to the entire population of those groups.
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Who's attributing the actions to an entire population? It's a Venn diagram
Circle: Alienated young men.
Circle: Islam.
Where those circles overlap, you have the most fertile recruiting ground for violent terrorism in the world today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yasa
Globally popular terrorism ideologies change through time. Today it's Islamic. Almost 1000 years ago it was Catholic. Regionally, these ideas vary. Who's to say what it'll be next.
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True. But
right now it's radical Islam. What's to be gained by pretending religion plays no role in this? The fact bigots can use it as an excuse for their racism doesn't mean it's not true.
As Corsi points out, their motivations are clear. They repeat those motivations over and over. Can anyone name another terrorist movement in history where we refused to believe that the stated agenda of the terrorists was really the agenda of the terrorists?