We are receiving very mixed messages.

If a religion promotes a Holy War, as a “call to arms” in the name of their God Allah, naturally young male Muslims will see that as the highest distinction among his brethren.

And to lose his life in such a conflict as the ultimate sacrifice a Muslim can make.

So which is correct? The peaceful law abiding Muslim or the vicious barbarian, using the most graphic and bloodthirsty methods to promote his religion?

Is he considered a hero among his own? Where are these young radical Muslims getting their information from, if not from their influential Islamic leaders?

I don’t think fellow Muslims can disassociate themselves from Islamic State, even as the rebel fundamentalists they are reading from the same hymn book.

The responsibility rests with the Muslim religious leaders to rein in these murderers, condemn them, and prosecute them, within their own.

This war has the potential be the most bloody conflict of the modern age, and in its infancy it needs to clarified, to impressionable young Muslims, that the doctrine of Islam is the promotion of peace and that they are very misguided.

— PAULA ROSS,

Albury