Rise of radical Islam cannot be pinned on U.S., average Muslims

Jonathan Zimmerman’s column, “How to really discuss radical Islam” (Oct. 9), is unsatisfactory for several reasons:

He says, “Teachers (must) explore the long history of Islam.” Young people should not be taught Islamic history except in the context of comparative religions. The United States and the West generally are becoming more secular. Many young people don’t even know the history of the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto or Native American religions into which they were born. Emphasizing Islam while excluding other religions will draw young, impressionable minds into that religion’s orbit.

Zimmerman seems to be accusing the United States of radical Islam’s rise, “starting with America’s support for the fundamentalist mujahedeen in Afghanistan during its war against the Soviet Union.” He ignores completely the fact in the aftermath of World War II, such countries as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya came to be ruled by strongmen and small, dictatorial oligarchies in which the majority of the people had little or no voice in their own government. In Tunisia, that led to a popular uprising, the Arab Spring, amid cries for democracy.

Rebellion also came from the opposite direction. Osama bin Laden, whom Zimmerman fails to mention, was raised in Saudi Arabia. He was taught by Wahhabi schools. Wahhabism is an ultra-orthodox branch of Islam that rejects all foreign influences, whether they be political, religious or cultural. To bin Laden, Saudi leadership was not conservative enough. His initial ultimate goal was to topple the regime. The Saudis stripped him of his citizenship. He fled to Egypt, then to Afghanistan, where he helped to form al-Qaida.

On Sept. 11, 2001, under bin Laden’s direction, al-Qaida operatives, radical Islamic terrorists, destroyed the World Trade Center in Manhattan and part of the Pentagon in Washington. Since then, the jihadists, as they refer to themselves, have splintered into ISIS, Boko Haram, and numbers of other terrorist groups now scattered across the globe.

The United States was wrong to invade Iraq. Its punishment — and the world’s — is to be engaged in a seemingly endless, horribly destructive war. Peace is sought.

The overwhelming majority of Muslims, like persons everywhere, are peaceful, simply wanting to get on with their lives. They are not terrorists. They are people.