I do. And it should be said. Muslims as a whole should not be demonized. Most Muslims are not terrorists.

However, if you drew up a list of known "terrorist" groups without any PRIOR knowledge of claimed religious affiliation to their cause and THEN went back and filled in those blanks, I'm pretty sure you'd find a smattering of this and that, religions here and there, then Muslims, Muslims Muslims, Muslims Muslims.

Again, this doesn't mean Muslims as a whole are terrorists. It does mean that a majority of loud terrorists out there claim Muslim influences.

I am NOT for demonizing a faith. But you simply can't deny there's - currently anyway - a significant connection between terrorism and a particular faith (if it's the "legitimate" faith or not is a different issue in this debate.) Perhaps the only reason for that is that the "average" peace-loving Muslim is hardly able to properly voice their condemnation or rejection of these usurpers because of the faith's intolerance to criticism. (We need to see "real" Muslims hotly protesting when a terrorist misuses their faith, much like hordes of apparently "non-real" Muslims do at embassies around the world when a cartoon is printed that they don't like.) I firmly believe that is the main problem - not a love of violence. If there's built-in suppression of all but the most punitive element, that's not OUR fault. Here you see that there can be an obvious Muslim-terrorism connection without it being about hating on the group as a whole. AND that your average Joe has real reasons why he's might be empathetically challenged.

So, back to the Uighurs - I too am surprised and saddened that they are not heralded as champions against the Chinese regime. And I agree it's because they are Muslims. But you don't change that by pretending that there's no perceivable reason for how that came about, and we're just a nation of hateful bigots. You have to show understanding to the cause of the people you're trying to change too. Recognize how we've come to our erroneous thinking and walk us to the right side of the road. Don't just say we're judgemental a$$holes or you immediately turn off anyone who should really be listening to you because of your refusal to empathize with them as much as you do the Other.

I understand your disagreement with how we have conducted the war on terror, including waterboarding and Gitmo.

You have not, however, come close to proving that our motivation is one of religious prejudice.

Let's start at the top, and define this "terrorism" we're supposedly at war with. The best definition I've found of it currently is from a UN General Assembly resolution 49/60:

"Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them."

Going by that description, the US would be obligated to treat the leadership and all membership of Operation Rescue America and Operation Rescue (Kansas) as 'terrorists' as both groups have practiced illegal harassment, stalking, and criminal intimidation. The fact Scott Roeder has some very loose political ties to the latter alone should mandate federal intervention. Yet not one member of either organization has been taken into custody in the same manner as the Uighurs or the various detainees from Central Asia.

Indeed, so far as is known, the only religious group targeted for rendition and detention at Camp X-Ray and similar such sites are Muslims. Why is that, when "terrorism" is such a broad range of tactics?

You do a disservice by suggesting that it is.

The only disservice here is done by you.

Look at some of the letters written in response to your post. People reflexively respond in agreement to your suggestion that it is our dislike of muslims that prompts our behavior.

Hardly 'reflexive', son. More like a cold-eyed assessment of a reality we don't like, but can't deny.

You appealed to their base emotions, . . . it works.

We leave such appeals to you and yours, who prefer dog whistles to actual thinking.

Use that mass of gray cells in your head and maybe the world will make a little more sense to you.

You wrote:

People reflexively respond in agreement to your suggestion that it is our dislike of muslims that prompts our behavior.

You appealed to their base emotions, . . . it works.

Glenn wrote:

For all the Serious analysis about the War on Terror, so much of it has been driven by nothing more complex or noble than sheer hostility towards Muslims. Muslims generally -- not just Al Qaeda -- replaced Communists as our New Enemy and became the new enabling force for our endless state of War and never-ending expansions of executive power. Rather obviously, the Uighurs were swept into the Enemy category solely by virtue of their status as Muslims. What more compelling evidence of that could be imagined than the fact that we imprisoned -- and continue to imprison -- people at Guantanamo whose only political interest is in resisting oppression by the Chinese government?

I think that is the paragraph you are referring to? Apparently you think you are clever by pretending that a description of a situation that has at least partly occurred because of a massive appeal to base emotions is itself such an appeal. Even you can do better than that.

i'll go glenn one better. not only does the religion and skin color matter when it comes to determining the way in which we frame the relative evil-ness of a foe, but so too does the method by which he or she plans on murdering US citizens.

as we speak, plenty of US citizens are dead or dying as a result of unsafe working conditions, air pollution, water pollution, and a variety of environmental ills. but none of this is considered "murder", and the companies that engage in long-term environmental pollution that will certainly kill hundreds of thousands of americans are not "terrorists", and nothing will happen to them or their CEOs not only because they are mostly white, male, christians, but because they run corporations.

US citizens are also dying because they don't have health insurance, or, because their health insurance companies have denied them coverage of a life-saving procedure due to previous health conditions or fine print. this is also not referred to as "murder" or "terror", and nothing will happen to the people who deny coverage to the Americans who will die.

US citizens have died at the hands of white supremicists, misogynists, the minute men and the unabomber, but none of these deaths were framed as deaths at the hands of terrorists.

it's a war on brown, Muslim people. brown Muslim people's actions have resulted in the tragic death of Americans, sure. but not even close to the amount of Americans who have died at the hands of corporate America. but somehow, that's Different.