US can't afford to suggest Islam and terror are related: Rushdie Dharam Shourie (PTI) (New York, November 2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Noted writer Salman Rushdie, under death threat for anti-Islamic writings, has stirred another hornet's nest by terming the US disclaimer about Islam and terrorism being in any way related as "necessary" but not true, though he finds most religious beliefs not very theological and hears voice of reason against it. In an article published in New York Times, Rushdie referred to the menace of terrorism and said world leaders had been repeating the mantra "this isn't about Islam", partly because if the US has to maintain its coalition against terror, it cannot afford to suggest that Islam and terrorism are in any way related and partly in the "virtuos" hope of deterring reprisals on innocent Muslims living in the West.
Terming this as "necessary disclaimer" but not true, he asks "if this is not about Islam, why the worldwide Muslim demonstrations in support of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?
Why did those 10,000 men armed with swords and axes mass on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, answering some mullah's call to jihad? Why are the war's first British casualties three Muslim men who died fighting on the Taliban side?
"Why the routine anti-Semitism of the much-repeated Islamic slander that "the Jews" arranged the hits on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with oddly self- deprecating explanation offered by the Taliban leadership, among others, that Muslims could not have the technological know-how or organizational sophistication to pull off such a feat?