zlacker

  Actually the truth is even messier... most of these young men committing 
  atrocities are merely indoctrinated pawns who know very little of 
  their own religion and instead defer to their "emir."

How can you claim that these young men know very little about their own religion? The Koran and Hadiths are full of hateful texts. Muhammed himself beheaded a tribe of jews according to the Hadiths. Most (all?) Muslims think Muhammed is the most perfect human being ever created - akin how Christians think about Jesus.

>>wsc981+(OP)
You may have misunderstood me there.

Yes, Islam is a particularly violent religion -- if you have read the Koran, many of its concepts seem very incompatible with the idea of a free secular society. Then again, the bible has the crusades.

I'm personally an atheist and I honestly don't think the problem is the the text itself but the cultural, ideological conflicts of an impoverished region that allows whoever "shouts the loudest" to assume power. The kids committing these atrocities probably couldn't even tell you what you just told me about Mohammad -- my point is that they are brainwashed and utterly uneducated so whomever comes along and says "this is god's word" is who they will listen to.

Anger + Desperation - Education = Extremism

You won't solve this problem by banning the Koran, but if you can get Muslims everywhere to renounce this "us-or-them" culture in favor of a more moderate interpretation (you know, how all religions seem to evolve if they want to survive) then perhaps we can neuter these kinds of groups before there's a power-vacuum?