True to form, Rich Lowry's comments on Meet The Press about Muslims and the role they should play in eradicating Islamic terrorism missed the ball. Dalia Mogahed, co-author of the book Who Speaks For Islam? and director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, spoke an important truth earlier in the program: No one asks those of other faiths or some races to be the spokespersons for any vile acts committed by perpetrators that share their religion, race, or ethnicity.
It was as if Rich Lowry never even heard Mogahed's previous statement. Of course he heard it—but it simply didn’t fit the false right-wing narrative he and his ilk are bent on getting across in order to mislead Americans into fear and war.
"It seems to me that this debate whether Islam is a religion of peace or not, really is irrelevant for outsiders," Lowry said. "It is for Muslims to decide whether it is a religion of peace or not. And if enough of them do then you cut off the oxygen to the radicals. But at the moment the extremists have significant financial, popular, and theological backing in the Middle East. An that is an enduring phenomenon. And it is one that will require a long ideological war to win."
Mogahed pushed back against Lowry's willfully misinformed statement.
"I am sorry. I am going to have to disagree with you," Mogahed said. "They simply do not have ideological, theological, or popular support. This is a criminal organization [ISIS] that is funding their criminality with things like drug trade and selling oil. They do not have the ideological support that you are describing at all. In fact it is quite the opposite. They've had a number of voices from across the spectrum say that what they are doing is completely un-Islamic. They have no support popularly in terms of the general public. There are some here but so are many other terrorist organizations. And their primary victims are Muslims. I think that is very important."
Don’t be fooled: Guys like Rich Lowry and the neocons know exactly what they’re doing.
They are trying to make their false narrative the reality, because it makes the job of the war profiteers much easier. Wake up, America, and understand how all the pieces are tied together. Muslims are just today's pawns for the plutocracy that is the military industrial complex.