Stop pretending you can't see the elephant, Mr Cameron

The past weekend has been a bad one, even by the standards of Islamist extremists.  We don't yet know exactly how many innocent people have been slaughtered in a shopping centre in Nairobi, or how many were murdered by suicide bombers leaving church in Peshawar; the total, by current estimates, is probably around the 150 mark so far.

We learned today that four Brits were among those killed in Nairobi, having presumably been unable to answer the question "what was the name of Mohammed's mother?".

And what has been David Cameron's response?

"These appalling terrorist attacks that take place, where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of religion - they don't. They do it in the name of terror, violence and extremism, and their warped view of the world."

Are you FUCKING kidding me, Cameron?!  You're going to sit there and pretend this mass slaughter had nothing to do with religion?  The murderers selected who would die and who would live based on a question only a Muslim would be expected to be able to answer.  Yes, these lunatics have a deeply "warped view of the world" - and why the fuck do you think that might be?  You honestly think that has nothing at all to do with their belief in the holiness and divine mandate of a religious doctrine notoriously heavy on murdering unbelievers (apostates, gay people, women, adulterers, people who draw pictures of Muhammed...)? You don't think a person's faith - a faith so strong they are willing to die for it - in a violent and barbaric religious doctrine might be in any way to blame when that person acts violently and barbarically?!

Of course these despicable, murderous lunatics do not represent all Muslims, or what most people would recognise as Islam.  But to try to pretend their actions had nothing to do with their religion is just... I mean, it's not even wrong, it's bizarre, it's nonsense of the most baffling order.  This isn't an elephant in the room, it's an entire herd of pachyderms squashed into an airing cupboard.

I'm so fucking sick of this cowardice.  And before anyone says it, no - I'm not picking on Muslims.  We all know various religions have been the cause of endless horrors throughout history, from the Inquisition to the "Troubles" in Ireland to the Vatican contribution to the HIV epidemic in Africa and the Philippines.  I don't actually care which religion is causing the problem because they're all just as ridiculous as each other.  But anybody who tries to pretend Islam is not, right now, the most dangerous religion in the world is not paying attention - or they're hiding behind an ink cloud of paternalistic politically correct affronted liberalism.

And I am a liberal; Cameron hasn't lost my vote over this because I'd never have voted Tory anyway.  But we liberals seem to be just as bad, or even worse; nobody can criticise Islam without being called "Islamophobic" or racist (as if all of Islam, from Indonesia to Somalia, were a race) by well-meaning people who are often, where the religion in question is not Islam, also outspoken against the privileged place religion holds in society.

We've no problem with blaming a person or a group's crimes on their political ideology; nobody worries about being thought racist or bigoted when they say Stalin or Hitler did what they did because of their insane and deeply nasty political beliefs.  Why do we worry about pointing it out when it's clear that a person's lunatic beliefs have led them to commit crimes - just because those beliefs are religious rather than political?  It's pathetic and cowardly and I'm sick of it.  You don't pretend you can't see the elephant when it's trampling around killing people.