What do 150 million Muslim men between 15 and 25 have in common? They don't know that we in America are the "good guys." For them, the messages beamed to them from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh tell them we do not respect them or their religion. Is it in our best interests to have them believe that?
Glenn Beck radio and TV shows and Rush Limbaugh's radio show have a global audience, much of which objects to their approach to stories relating to Islam and Muslims. What are their sponsors thinking? They are making the recruiting of our enemies easy by their rhetoric. Advertisers that condone disrespect for any religion should be boycotted.
If they evoke countervailing attitudes among only 1 in every million young Muslim men, they still have created quite a large cadre of potential terrorists. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, and in my opinion the number is much higher, that would still be a cadre of 150 young men. And that's assuming the young women have the wisdom not to join in the reaction to their rhetoric. If you combined all of the young people responsible for the September 11th attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania (September 11, 2001), the London bombings (July 7, 2005), the Madrid train attack (March 11, 2004), and the 2008 Mumbai attacks (November 26, 2008), you still will not have reached 150.
This has always been my primary point. How will we achieve equilibrium of peace in the world while a large part of 21% of the world's population feels our media unfairly criticizes them and their religion? Most Muslims want peace every bit as much as every American. I pick on Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh only because they are the noisiest critics of Islam and Muslims on the world stage. Someone needs to whisper in their ears that they need to find another way to defend us from our enemies, because what they are doing is counter productive.
During the early part of my life the United States was honored internationally for saving civilization. Now, thanks to some members of our media, it is often difficult for other people in the world to understand our motives. How do we demonstrate that we, the American People, can live in harmony with people of any national origin and religion? Certainly, we cannot make an exception of the Muslim world, which is 21% of humanity! Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh seem to express such an opinion in much of their coverage of Islam and Muslims.
Ethnic and religious diversity is the very essence of what makes us American. In our society, with its broad spectrum of religious, ethnic and national origin groups, we all adopt good ideas immediately. Bad ideas are rejected quickly by the majority and soon disappear, though they may seem strong for a time. That is what makes America strong. Yet there are those among us who would turn their back on that heritage. We need for them to understand the error in their logic.
People sometimes say I am an apologist for Islam. That is far from the truth! Many things need to change in the Muslim world. These include the abuse and subjugation of women, and the need to stop human trafficking that occurs in many of the largest Muslim countries. We struggle with similar issues throughout American society. We cannot single out Muslims for criticism if we have not put the rest of our house in order. We must all work together to fight for the rights of women in Islam and the West.
Beck and Limbaugh, and much of the rest of the media, do us a disservice by constantly harping on the tragic terrorist incidents of our recent past. Yes, they were horrific, and killed thousands of people. But where is their outrage over the tens of thousands of people that we allow to die on our highways each year, because we don't adequately control drunk driving? Few drunk drivers are Muslim!
We need to rethink what is in our best interests as a country. Beck and Limbaugh have had the megaphone for a long time, and I believe that their expressed attitudes about Islam and Muslims are doing us more harm than good. It is time for the rest of us to stand up and say enough is enough.
Skip Conover's 2007 book, Tsunami of Blood, was read by over 100,000 people in over 140 countries. He is widely known for his broad experience doing business in the Muslim world. He continues to write about the interface between Islam and the West at http://www.americanmaninthemiddle.com/