We can now say that about a thousand deadly Islamic terror attacks are reported in the media each year – although the true extent of the violence is certainly much higher.

Imagine what isn’t caught in the dark corners of the planet, particularly those countries in the Muslim world that keep the press from shedding light on the sort of atrocities that would be front-page news in the West. More than one million dhimmis have been killed in the Islamic Republic of Sudan over the last twenty years, for example, but they are no more remembered than are the many millions of other victims who began accumulating under the Prophet’s own sword fourteen centuries earlier.

Despite the carnage that Islam dishes out around the world each year, many make the mistake of trivializing the violence, since the number of casualties is measured “only” in tens of thousands these days. They forget the enormous amount of resources that are committed to contain the threat. Yet, in spite of the many billions of dollars spent and the hundreds of security personnel that pay with their lives in places like Kashmir and Iraq, Muslim terrorists still manage to kill more innocent people every 12 months than the Spanish Inquisition did in 350 years.

What would the casualty toll look like if we weren’t spending so much in money, technology and blood to protect ourselves from the ‘Holy Warriors’ of Islam - those dedicated fanatics who spend their time memorizing the Qur’an and dreaming of ways to circumvent security and amass piles of dead bodies. While our politicians debate the legal niceties of wiretapping terror suspects, our enemy is actively seeking chemical poisons and nuclear material to maximize our suffering and death according to their interpretation of Islam.

How would you feel if these architects of misery were acting in the name of your religion? Would you brush off the violence with a casual dismissal and turn your attention to petty complaints of personal slight? Amazingly, this is the sort of moral disconnect that we find in the Muslim world. While people of other faiths would be horrified by such terror and resolved to ending it before raising issues that are trivial by comparison, the Islamic community distinguishes itself with a near absence of moral objectivity.

When Muslim snipers rampage across America and children are blown to bits in India (and dozens of other countries) Muslim-American groups like CAIR and MPAC are far more concerned with a handful of dead fish that appear in a mosque parking lot, and exhibit more outrage over terror financiers being denied entry into the United States.

While the elderly are having their throats slashed by Jihadis in Thailand and women in Europe are raped by Muslim immigrants, these self-absorbed groups are rallying in support of terror suspects like Sami al-Arian.

What’s wrong with these people? What’s wrong with this religion?

Islam seems to dull the moral senses and exaggerate the perception of self-importance. Muslims in the West dress their cooption of culture and Christian heritage in the language of ethics and equality, yet they display not the slightest concern for the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries, many of whom live in horrific conditions under third-class status imposed by Islamic law. At each opportunity Muslims implicitly stress that the rights and lives of non-believers are largely inconsequential to the spread of their own religion.

Many Westerners were shocked by the lack of genuine outrage in the wake of 9/11, as the reaction of the Islamic world was mostly apathetic – save notable pockets of expressed elation. When offered, the stale disclaimers had a flat ring to them, unlike, say, the engaged zealotry over a Qur’an desecration or a public remark deemed to be slanderous. The lives of 3,000 Americans are of less importance to CAIR, for example, than the delicate sensibilities of Muslim-Americans in the aftermath of 9/11.

There is even a childlike naivety among those claiming to “denounce” terror, as if mere verbiage should be enough to convince the rest of us that Islam has “nothing to do” with the terrorists themselves, who plainly state their motives in religious terms, often with language lifted straight from the Qur’an. Indeed, religious clerics are quite active in the Jihad recruitment process, and mosques are often used for planning and staging attacks. Yet, rather than addressing the problem head-on and cleaning house, Muslims find ways to shirk responsibility.

This year’s Hajj is a case in point. Traditionally, the journey to Mecca, at the heart of the Islamic world, is one of the holiest events in a mainstream believer’s life. Yet, at the Grand Mosque this year, a top cleric told 2.5 million pilgrims that the only connection Islam has with terror is that it is a plot by the West to discredit the religion. Another cleric (who apparently has a very poor grasp of reflexive logic) told the same crowd that the West’s war on terror was actually a war on Islam.

The Qur’an, of course, is quite clear about how believers should respond to such aggression (and it isn’t along the lines of “Bless them that curse you”). With Hajj sermons using Jihad as an excuse for more Jihad, is there any reason to expect an end to the violence?

This selfish immaturity and disregard for human suffering is almost universally characteristic of Islam. On their site, CAIR disingenuously asks visitors to sign an online petition called Not in Our Name, which serves a public relations function while their real interests are in publicizing perceived insults and obscure rumors that impassion hatred against the U.S. overseas, fueling the violence and disorientation. Is it any great mystery why Islamic terror continues year after year with no end in sight?

While Western religion strives to make the world a better place, the goal of Islam is nothing more than Islam. In its history, there have been no contributions of significance toward science and knowledge. Its greatest cultural achievements have been to arbitrarily preserve what is borrowed from conquered peoples, be it African coffee or Hindu mathematics. Every technology that Muslims use today was developed in the West, including the cell phones and airplanes that their most devoted followers periodically turn into instruments of destruction.

Neither is there a legacy of hospitals or missions from a religion that is based on an archaic code of ethics providing rules for beating women and waging war, but none for helping those outside the faith. Certainly there was no abolition movement in the Islamic world, where slavery persists to this day.

The most impressive humanitarian accomplishment that Muslims can boast of is that not every infidel was put to death when the Jihad swept through the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe in earlier centuries. At least some of those who agreed to live in humiliation and complete subjugation were spared the sword.

Clearly Islam isn’t like other religions. It doesn’t have the same history, the same goals, or the same morality. It does not inspire compassion and it shuns introspection. It is the most susceptible to violence and the least open to dialogue. It demands the very respect from others that it is unwilling to give those over whom it has power.

(This isn't to say that there aren’t decent people who are Muslim, indeed there are plenty, but it is more in spite of Islam rather than because of it – an allegiance to a higher standard of ethics that transcends Muhammad’s harsh rules for 7th century survival).

Unfortunately, the nature of Western religion and the gods of multiculturalism seduce us into believing that all religions have the same ethical regard (or disregard) for human life and respect for liberal values. In our minds – and only in our minds – we contrive moral equivalence between cultures, religions and events that are in fact very distinct from one another, merely because doing so provides a sense of personal superiority.

Islam will never be a religion of peace until Muslims decide to make it so by taking responsibility. Until this happens, we must ensure the physical security and intellectual freedom of our children and grandchildren by having the courage to think critically and independently, seeing Islam for what it really is – rather than what we wish it would be.

 http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Articles/Milestone4k.htm