To pretend I know enough about terrorism to comment in an informed way would be disingenuous. However, I do have a very basic understanding of Islam and the various conflicts and battles being fought both between countries and ideals. My need to seem like I know what I’m talking about and the fact that I have a blog means I am going to talk about it, so here we go.

Last year I took a 100-level course called World Of Islam that gave a very broad look at the formation and principles of the Islamic faith. From that class I gathered that the religion at it’s core is very similar to Christianity and Judaism in that the values are the same. Although the message may be presented in very different ways amongst the three, the principles intended to be taught are all identical. Where the Islamic faith strays, however, is the fact that their fundamental groups are very visible and thus are singled out as being one with the rest of the religion. Unfortunately, many uneducated Americans, when hearing the word “Muslim” actually hear “terrorist”. Although that is an extremely ignorant belief, it is almost understandable in today’s world. 9/11 and subsequent terrorist attacks are always fresh on the mind. When people watch 24/7 news that reports on a color coded threat chart and a limit to the amount of liquid you can carry on planes and fundamentalist leaders who denounce America, the public is bound to be ignorant. The fact is that most people want to believe that everyone who wears a turban or speaks arabic – or rather everyone who is Muslim – is a terrorist. It’s far easier to hate a broad group than it is to decipher who is good and who is bad.

Islam, at it’s core, is an admirable faith that enriches the lives of 1.5 billion people. It’s the tiny percentage of that 1.5 billion that hate us, however, that scares me to no end. Certainly that’s not a new thought. But more and more these days I understand the extent to which they hate us and the lengths they are willing to go. One story, in particular, inspired me to write this post. One of Osama bin Laden’s sons, Omar, recently published a book detailing his youth. At one point, Osama bin Laden asked his many sons to volunteer for suicide in the name of his cause. Omar protested and his father told him he meant nothing more to him than any other boy in the country. At that point, Omar realized his father “hated his enemies more than he loved his sons.”

How do you successfully fight a force that believes in something so strongly? I’m not sure, and I don’t think anyone has an answer. Will our efforts in Afghanistan pan out? Maybe. Will attacking Yemen (after the Christmas plane bombing incident) show the Middle East we won’t allow any harboring of terrorism? Maybe. There are a lot of maybes. Unfortunately I don’t think we will ever fully succeed in this fight. Only time will tell.