Islam = terror?

Interesting op/ed from Michael Graham here:

I take no pleasure in saying it. It pains me to think it. I could very well lose my job in talk radio over admitting it. But it is the plain truth:

Islam is a terror organization.

Graham was suspended without pay shortly after publication. The immediate question is; if the editorial was so offensive as to get the writer suspended, why did the editors agree to publish it in the first place?

Too many people miss the forest for the trees. It's about the big picture. I write about it all the time - it's about structure of religion.

Does Graham make valid points? Absolutely, but he really doesn't investigate the "whys" of the situation. Are the imams afraid of speaking out against terrorism, lest the suicide bombers target them?

Lets make one thing perfectly clear - I still insist that "terrorism" and it's threat are vastly overblown. How many Muslims are there in the world? A billion? Two billion? What are the percentage of those Muslims that are committing violent acts of terrorism? Is it 1%? Heck no.. .01%? Still too high.. When I get some time, I'll break out Google and a calculator and see if I can get an approximation from checking the State Department statistics.

Graham's blanket condemnation of an entire religion over this rather recent upsurge seems spurious at best. What he does nail is the reluctance of the Muslim clerics to forcefully reject all terrorist activities.

Again, if you ask a terrorist if he's a terrorist, he will tell you he is a soldier, fighting the enemy with the best tactics he can muster. That creates a quandary for the Muslim leaders who are trying to show a resolve to the western world, and a sympatric appearance to the "oppressed" Muslims.

That is a cowardly act, and they should not be in positions of religious leadership if they cannot make firm and unequivocal statements on the morality of certain behavior.

However, I believe the core problem is more insidious than that, and it is not unique to Islam. It is the same in every religion. The leaders create the strife, and the hostility intentionally.

Religion is just like the old Jerry Springer TV show. If nobody is throwing chairs at each other, nobody will watch the show. Therefore the producers (priests) set the conditions for conflict.

It's all about the ass in the seat and the collection plate that goes around. It is their power.

So while I agree with many parts of Graham's editorial, I don't think he goes far enough. Hold the religious leaders to account. Stick the camera in their face and make them be unequivocal in denouncing violence. Otherwise, revoke their tax exempt status and deport them from the country.

Then do the same here in America with the Christians, because they will not stop hating until we say enough is enough.

But the sad fact of the matter is, if all they do is preach kindness and love, nobody will go to their services.... and that will be the death of religion.

Agent Smith once said, "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where no one suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program, entire crops were lost."

Apparently we cannot live without chairs being thrown on TV, and bombings in London.