Religious extremists are not all alike

In his letter of Nov. 20, James Prescott laments that in the wake of the recent Paris "incident," the news media stepped-up their badgering and criticism of Barack Obama for refusing to label the perpetrators "Islamic extremists."

Mr. Prescott then attempts to establish a double standard by listing various incidents of domestic terrorism in the United States where the perpetrators have been routinely labeled as merely "right-wing extremists." He then follows with the question, "Are these not radical Christian extremists and why do you not denigrate those who fail to refer to these people as such?"

Actually, there is no parallel comparison whatsoever. Since the 1980s, there have been some 400 separate attacks by Islamic extremists fighting for various terrorist groups including, al-Qaida, ISIS, Boko Haram, etc. These radical Islamist organizations are responsible for killing approximately 17,000 men, women and children, while 31,000 have been wounded or injured.

Now compare the preceding carnage to the following specific list employed by Prescott in his attempt to illustrate that all perpetrators are simply "extremists" hiding behind religion: burning black churches, mass murder at a Sikh temple, defacing synagogues with swastikas, bombing an Oklahoma City federal building, or bombing abortion clinics and murdering its physicians.

Note that in all these domestic incidents only some of the abortion-related crimes can incontrovertibly be linked to Christian extremism. To that point, Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was a self-described "agnostic" and Wade Page, the murderer at a Sikh temple, identified with white supremacy.

To equate the magnitude and motives of Islamic terrorism to the murder of four doctors and four abortion clinic employees since 1977 is to not fully grasp that a genuine religious war is being waged on a global scale, contrary to what the political left wants everyone to buy.

Frank Gabl

Prospect Heights