By Frank Camp
During an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday, Center for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) L.A. branch director Hussam Ayloush said the United States is partly responsible for radical Islam:
“Let’s not forget that some of our own foreign policy as Americans, as the West, have fueled that extremism. When we support cruel leaders in Egypt, or other places. When we support dictatorships, repressive regimes around the world that push people over to the edge. Then they become extremists; then they become terrorists. We are partly responsible. Terrorism is a global problem, not a Muslim problem.”
Islamic scholar Raymond Ibrahim disagrees.
A 2008 article by National Review cites Ibrahim’s book, The Al Qaeda Reader, in which he says that although radical Islamic propaganda is often focused on the alleged evils of Western foreign policy, their internal reasoning is much different:
“However, the rationale al-Qaeda offers in its theological treatises, which were composed to justify their terror ‘within an Islamic framework,’ are very different … Democracy, women’s rights, secularism, and the right to pursue the faith of our choice are just some of the aspects of Western society al-Qaeda’s leaders cite as evidence of our supposed moral decay.
Indeed, they argue ‘practically everything valued by the immoral West is condemned under sharia law.’ That is, our Western society is wholly at odds with the fascist laws they seek to impose. We are, in al-Qaeda’s words, the ‘infidels’ and the ‘Great Satan’ and deserve to die.”
The article also notes that radical Islamic animus is nothing new, referencing Sayyid Qutb, his journey to America in the 1940s, and his hatred of all things Western.
Although it was written about al-Qaeda, inferences can surely be made about ISIS, as well as radical Islam as a whole.
Then again, CAIR, who was named an unindicted co-conspirator by the Justice Department for its financial support of Hamas, will be CAIR.
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