Analyzing an argument
By
David Pierzynski
“Terroism in The name of God” by Yonah Alexander describes the radical Islamic terrorist groups responsible for terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in the Middle East and other parts of the world. In his article, Alexander explains how these terrorist groups formed and the negative effects they are having on society. Through this argument Alexander’s goal is to inform people the magnitude of danger these groups are posing to society and the evils they bring onto the world. I believe Alexander’s target audience is the average person who wants to know more about these terrorist groups in which they hear about in the news so frequently.
Alexander groups his argument into four sections. In the fourth paragraph of the first page, he introduces the two major sectors of the Islamic terrorist organizations in the Middle East. In the second section he explains the first terrorist group which is called the Hamas, and in the third section he talks about the second terrorist group called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). In his final section, Alexander talks about the terrorists “alarming” threats too bringing peace to the Middle East. The Format in which Alexander writes is easy to follow. He makes sure not to cast out regular Islamic practitioners from reading this article by making sure to draw a line between them and radical Islamic groups, “This threat does not come from traditional or even fundamentalist Islam… The true threat comes from Radical movements that use terrorism to achieve their goals and justify their barbaric actions on the basis of misinterpretations of Islam (page 2, paragraph 2).”
Even though Alexander’s article is reader friendly and does not ostracize any group from reading his ideas, there are still many problems that need to be addressed about his argument. When reading this article I felt like Alexander was stating many statistics and facts about terrorist organizations but...