Tom Toles for November 17, 2015

There is no reason to tolerate terrorism. Find the sponsors and “decommission” them, whether by death or imprisonment. If that seems to someone to be “taking the bait”, so be it.

By the same token, do not conflate all those who share some outward characteristic, whether it be appearance, language, or religion, with the terrorists. It would be just as sensible to conclude that all white, or nominally Christian, men are mass murderers because of the prevalence of those qualities among the perpetrators of such crimes in the USA and Europe. (Anders Behring Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph etc.)

Everybody wants to separate the Muslim religion from ISIS and Boko Haram but I think it should be pointed out that the Nazi party was succored by the German People and look at the evil that visited upon the earth.

By letting the mass exodus from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries happen we are ceding those countries to the worst of the lot.

This nation was forged by people who didn’t run away from problems they found objectionable. They rolled up their sleeves and solved the problem. Now in our rush to avoid being judged as bigots we allow these other countries to become cradles of evil.

I don’t believe there is much of a screening process for the refugees either which leaves us very vulnerable in this country.

Or possibly you don’t understand what you don’t want to understand. Try reading it again, a 9th grade comprehension level should suffice.

Christianity is based on the same principles as Islam. Everybody was convinced that they had the one true religion, and you either converted them or killed them, because a nonbeliever was an abomination. There was this whole thing called the Spanish Inquisition based on killing anyone ( generally Jews) who didn’t convert to Christianity. Then, there were the Crusades and the Nazis. And, there’s plenty of Bible to support the idea that nonChristians are an abomination. Lately, Christians, for the most part, choose to ignore those parts, and pretend we never believed it in the first place. But, history disagrees.

Spot on, Dianne Lee. Thanks.

This is s really stupid analogy!

MephistophelesI am not sure which “this nation” you reference. Certainly the holier than thou imperialist ones today were overpopulated by the descendants of those fleeing oppression – US mid 19th to early 20th centuries from Europe, UK mid 20th century from their former colonies, Canada 1960-70s from US, etc. (we will see if Canada is still in this category having gotten rid of Harper).

The terrorists want us to respond with violence so they can recruit more terrorists. It is vitally important that we take the bait and fall for it. Every time. We can do no less. We are idiots.

Are you saying all religions are just Muslim religion? Because I can think of many wars that were fought on behalf of religion by people who we’d probably consider terrorists of their time. The crusades, the inquisition..etc. Or is it ok to terrorize a group of people and say you’re doing it on behalf of a religion as long as it’s not Muslim religion.

When they do it, it is terrorism. When we do it, it is spreading democracy. It’s time we packed up and get the hell outta the middle east. The more problems we cause, the more they resist. Who is the more stupid, the people we elect or the people who elect them. Now that 6 multi-national corporations control our media, the less knowledge Americans actually have.

Then I agree.

All of this is one reason I have never been attracted to any organized religion. Even as a child I heard statements from religion leaders that just did not make any logical sense.

I’ve said this before in comments on other cartoons, but it bears repeating. The problem of terrorism emanating from the Arab world will not be solved by anything the West does. Ultimately, it will only be solved by those within the Arab world. It is they who will have to counter the narratives that attract people around the globe to terrorist causes, and reclaim their land and their religion. In truth, I think Arabs saw Saddam Hussein in a similar light, which is why none of them supported W’s invasion of Iraq. Their attitude could be characterized as “Yeah, he’s an a$$hole. But he’s OUR a$$hole.”In the meantime, we should treat the terrorists as what they are, which is mass murderers. We wouldn’t just ignore a McVeigh, or a Rudolph, or a _________ out of fear that by pursuing them we would somehow legitimize them and their “cause” and help them attract adherents. We find them and put them out of business, and we should do the same with these scum-of-the-earth.

I know, I do run on, but let me clarify my previous post. By no means am I advocating invasions, coups, or installation of puppet regimes. I’m only saying treat a criminal as a criminal.