[TLBSHOW]

Calling Islam a peaceful religion "is an increasingly hard argument to make," said Kenneth Adelman, a former Reagan official who serves on the Bush Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. "The more you examine the religion, the more militaristic it seems. After all, its founder, Mohammed, was a warrior, not a peace advocate like Jesus."

snip

Another member of the Pentagon advisory board, Eliot Cohen of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, wrote an article on the Wall Street Journal editorial page arguing that the enemy of the United States enemy is not terrorism "but militant Islam." "The enemy has an ideology, and an hour spent surfing the Web will give the average citizen at least the kind of insights that he or she might have found during World Wars II and III by reading 'Mein Kampf' or the writings of Lenin, Stalin or Mao."

From story above

[Minutemen]

Amen brother, you are preachin' to the choir.

[Jhoffa_]

PS: I guess it could be said more simply if you looked at Osama and the terrorists as using Islam to attach themselves to thousands of "potential warriors" the world over.

They need to use Islam as a binder. Otherwise people would denounce them for their atrocities.

Attacking "Islam" at large will just aid them. Men will do anything to defend their faith, and Osama knows that. Further, he's counting on that.

IMO, it is better to do as President Bush (of which I am no big fan) has done and draw a distinction between Islam as a religion and terrorism as a means to an end.

Thus Osama and his potential recruits are separated.