Islam hates America?

That’s what Republican Party presidential campaign frontrunner Donald J. Trump has asserted in his latest broadside against nearly 2 billion of the world’s residents.

No sir. You are wrong!

Trump’s assertion goes far afield from what we know.

It is that a radical portion of the Islamic religion has perverted the doctrine espoused by a great religion. They are not true Muslims. They are cultists. They are murderers. They are religious perverts.

The men who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon on 9/11 were not God-fearing Muslims. They were murderers, pure and simple.

Sure, these individuals hate Americans. They also hate Europeans. Moreover, they also hate fellow Muslims.

Let us realize that the largest number of casualties who’ve been injured and killed by terror attacks around the world are Muslims.

Trump’s false assertion became a brief talking point tonight at the Republican debate in Miami. Sen. Marco Rubio challenged Trump by suggesting that the reality TV celebrity is wrong to suggest that hatred for America is somehow codified in the Quran.

It’s not.

Donald Trump cannot be allowed to get away with this continued fear- and hate-mongering along the presidential campaign trail.