Terrorism By Any Other Name

I posted something snarky on Monday about the growing muslim population in the greater Detroit area. Trying to be witty, I included a sarcastic image of a child suicide bomber.

Then I read this story. Life, it seems, does indeed imitate art.

Six months ago, in a moving ceremony during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, President Hamid Karzai went on Afghan television to pardon about two dozen young boys, the youngest only 8 years old, who had been caught trying to carry out suicide attacks.

On Monday, authorities in Kandahar province (Afghanistan) reported that two of the children, 10-year-olds, had been rearrested last week, apparently intending again to carry out bombings.

Provincial spokesman Zalmay Ayubi said the boys each had a vest full of explosives when they were detained ... and that they told intelligence officers they had been recruited for suicide missions.

... the pair had undergone training at a madrasa, or religious school, in Pakistan. The mullahs there told the boys they would be unharmed when they set off their bombs...

(One of the children) ... told authorities he had been taught how to detonate an explosives-laden vest. "They showed me how to press the button in my hand," he said...

The children spoke of having been told to try to approach foreign troops and set off their explosives, and of receiving drugs beforehand, which they were told was medicine to make them strong.

So much is so very wrong with this that I'm at a loss for words. What sort of people, or parents, or religion, use children in such a callous fashion?

The common denominator, I'm afraid, is islam.

I'm aware that is somewhat simplistic, but I'm sick to death of being politically correct about it. Yes, other religions have their shortcomings, and yes, other religions have committed atrocities in the past in the name of one god or another. But they've all more or less outgrown that, with one glaring exception.

The 'religion of peace.'

The same 'religion' that demands tolerance for itself, but denies that same tolerance to other religions.

The same 'religion' that cold-bloodily sacrifices children to kill other women and children.

That's not a religion.

That's terrorism...